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interposed Mr. Brownlow. | No speaker | all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them | "I'd send them one and all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain | so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?" "Not exactly that," rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; "but we must proceed gently and with great care." "Gentleness and care," exclaimed the doctor. "I'd send them one and all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view." "What object?" asked the doctor. "Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived." "Ah!" said Mr. Losberne, cooling | to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose. "Then what the devil is to be done?" said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies. "Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?" "Not exactly that," rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; "but we must proceed gently and with great care." "Gentleness and care," exclaimed the doctor. "I'd send them one and all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view." "What object?" asked the doctor. "Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived." "Ah!" said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; "I almost forgot that." "You see," pursued Mr. Brownlow; "placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?" "Hanging a few of them at least, | than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff; and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose. "Then what the devil is to be done?" said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies. "Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?" "Not exactly that," rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; "but we must proceed gently and with great care." "Gentleness and care," exclaimed the doctor. "I'd send them one and all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view." "What object?" asked the doctor. "Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived." "Ah!" said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; "I almost forgot that." "You see," pursued Mr. Brownlow; "placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?" "Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability," suggested the doctor, "and transporting the rest." "Very good," replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; "but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest or at least to Oliver's, which is the same thing." "How?" inquired the doctor. "Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, Monks, upon | own dear children, dead and gone since I was a lightsome young creature." Running on thus, and now holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns. Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity. Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance. The old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself. To afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening, and that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred. These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver returned home. Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath. Nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff; and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose. "Then what the devil is to be done?" said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies. "Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?" "Not exactly that," rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; "but we must proceed gently and with great care." "Gentleness and care," exclaimed the doctor. "I'd send them one and all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view." "What object?" asked the doctor. "Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived." "Ah!" said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; "I almost forgot that." "You see," pursued Mr. Brownlow; "placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?" "Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability," suggested the doctor, "and transporting the rest." "Very good," replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; "but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest or at least to Oliver's, which is the same thing." "How?" inquired the doctor. "Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem, and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. For, suppose he were apprehended, we have no proof against him. He is not even (so far as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in any of their robberies. If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot." "Then," said the doctor impetuously, "I put it to you again, whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest intentions, but really" "Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray," said Mr. Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. "The promise shall be kept. I don't think it will, in the slightest degree, interfere with our proceedings. But, before we can resolve upon any precise course of action, it will be | Mr. Grimwig lifted up his head, and converting one of the hind legs of his chair into a pivot, described three distinct circles with the assistance of his stick and the table; sitting in it all the time. After performing this evolution, he rose and limped as fast as he could up and down the room at least a dozen times, and then stopping suddenly before Rose, kissed her without the slightest preface. "Hush!" he said, as the young lady rose in some alarm at this unusual proceeding. "Don't be afraid. I'm old enough to be your grandfather. You're a sweet girl. I like you. Here they are!" In fact, as he threw himself at one dexterous dive into his former seat, Mr. Brownlow returned, accompanied by Oliver, whom Mr. Grimwig received very graciously; and if the gratification of that moment had been the only reward for all her anxiety and care in Oliver's behalf, Rose Maylie would have been well repaid. "There is somebody else who should not be forgotten, by the bye," said Mr. Brownlow, ringing the bell. "Send Mrs. Bedwin here, if you please." The old housekeeper answered the summons with all dispatch; and dropping a curtsey at the door, waited for orders. "Why, you get blinder every day, Bedwin," said Mr. Brownlow, rather testily. "Well, that I do, sir," replied the old lady. "People's eyes, at my time of life, don't improve with age, sir." "I could have told you that," rejoined Mr. Brownlow; "but put on your glasses, and see if you can't find out what you were wanted for, will you?" The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into her arms. "God be good to me!" cried the old lady, embracing him; "it is my innocent boy!" "My dear old nurse!" cried Oliver. "He would come back I knew he would," said the old lady, holding him in her arms. "How well he looks, and how like a gentleman's son he is dressed again! Where have you been, this long, long while? Ah! the same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad. I have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day, side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since I was a lightsome young creature." Running on thus, and now holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns. Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity. Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance. The old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself. To afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening, and that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred. These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver returned home. Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath. Nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff; and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose. "Then what the devil is to be done?" said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies. "Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?" "Not exactly that," rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; "but we must proceed gently and with great care." "Gentleness and care," exclaimed the doctor. "I'd send them one and all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view." "What object?" asked the doctor. "Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived." "Ah!" said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; "I almost forgot that." "You see," pursued Mr. Brownlow; "placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?" "Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability," suggested the doctor, "and transporting the rest." "Very good," replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; "but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest or at least to Oliver's, which is the same thing." "How?" inquired the doctor. "Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem, and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. For, suppose he were apprehended, we have no proof against him. He is not even (so far as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in any of their robberies. If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot." "Then," said the doctor impetuously, "I put it to you again, whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest intentions, but really" "Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray," said Mr. Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. "The promise shall be kept. I don't think it will, in the slightest degree, interfere with our proceedings. But, before we can resolve upon any precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law; or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an account of his haunts and description of his person, as will enable us to identify him. She cannot be seen until next Sunday night; this is Tuesday. I would suggest that in the meantime, we remain perfectly quiet, and keep these matters secret even from Oliver himself." Although Mr. Losberne received with many wry faces a proposal involving a delay of five whole days, he was fain to admit that no better course occurred to him just then; and as both Rose and Mrs. Maylie sided very strongly with Mr. Brownlow, that gentleman's proposition was carried unanimously. "I should like," he said, "to call in the aid of my friend Grimwig. He is a strange creature, but a shrewd one, and might prove of material assistance to us; I should say that he was bred a lawyer, and quitted the Bar in disgust because he had only one brief and a motion of course, in twenty years, though whether that is recommendation or not, you must determine for yourselves." "I have no objection to your calling in your friend if I may call in mine," said the doctor. "We must put it to the vote," replied Mr. Brownlow, "who may he be?" "That lady's son, and this young lady's very old friend," said the doctor, motioning towards Mrs. Maylie, and concluding with an expressive glance at her niece. Rose blushed deeply, but she did not make any audible objection to this motion (possibly she felt in a hopeless minority); and Harry Maylie and Mr. Grimwig were accordingly added to the committee. "We stay in town, of course," said Mrs. Maylie, "while there remains the slightest prospect of prosecuting this inquiry with a chance of success. I will spare neither trouble nor expense in behalf of the object in which we are all so deeply interested, and I am content to remain here, if it be for twelve months, so long as you assure me that any hope remains." "Good!" rejoined Mr. Brownlow. "And as I see on the faces about me, a disposition to inquire how it happened that I was not | this long, long while? Ah! the same sweet face, but not so pale; the same soft eye, but not so sad. I have never forgotten them or his quiet smile, but have seen them every day, side by side with those of my own dear children, dead and gone since I was a lightsome young creature." Running on thus, and now holding Oliver from her to mark how he had grown, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers fondly through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns. Leaving her and Oliver to compare notes at leisure, Mr. Brownlow led the way into another room; and there, heard from Rose a full narration of her interview with Nancy, which occasioned him no little surprise and perplexity. Rose also explained her reasons for not confiding in her friend Mr. Losberne in the first instance. The old gentleman considered that she had acted prudently, and readily undertook to hold solemn conference with the worthy doctor himself. To afford him an early opportunity for the execution of this design, it was arranged that he should call at the hotel at eight o'clock that evening, and that in the meantime Mrs. Maylie should be cautiously informed of all that had occurred. These preliminaries adjusted, Rose and Oliver returned home. Rose had by no means overrated the measure of the good doctor's wrath. Nancy's history was no sooner unfolded to him, than he poured forth a shower of mingled threats and execrations; threatened to make her the first victim of the combined ingenuity of Messrs. Blathers and Duff; and actually put on his hat preparatory to sallying forth to obtain the assistance of those worthies. And, doubtless, he would, in this first outbreak, have carried the intention into effect without a moment's consideration of the consequences, if he had not been restrained, in part, by corresponding violence on the side of Mr. Brownlow, who was himself of an irascible temperament, and party by such arguments and representations as seemed best calculated to dissuade him from his hotbrained purpose. "Then what the devil is to be done?" said the impetuous doctor, when they had rejoined the two ladies. "Are we to pass a vote of thanks to all these vagabonds, male and female, and beg them to accept a hundred pounds, or so, apiece, as a trifling mark of our esteem, and some slight acknowledgment of their kindness to Oliver?" "Not exactly that," rejoined Mr. Brownlow, laughing; "but we must proceed gently and with great care." "Gentleness and care," exclaimed the doctor. "I'd send them one and all to" "Never mind where,"<|quote|>interposed Mr. Brownlow.</|quote|>"But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have in view." "What object?" asked the doctor. "Simply, the discovery of Oliver's parentage, and regaining for him the inheritance of which, if this story be true, he has been fraudulently deprived." "Ah!" said Mr. Losberne, cooling himself with his pocket-handkerchief; "I almost forgot that." "You see," pursued Mr. Brownlow; "placing this poor girl entirely out of the question, and supposing it were possible to bring these scoundrels to justice without compromising her safety, what good should we bring about?" "Hanging a few of them at least, in all probability," suggested the doctor, "and transporting the rest." "Very good," replied Mr. Brownlow, smiling; "but no doubt they will bring that about for themselves in the fulness of time, and if we step in to forestall them, it seems to me that we shall be performing a very Quixotic act, in direct opposition to our own interest or at least to Oliver's, which is the same thing." "How?" inquired the doctor. "Thus. It is quite clear that we shall have extreme difficulty in getting to the bottom of this mystery, unless we can bring this man, Monks, upon his knees. That can only be done by stratagem, and by catching him when he is not surrounded by these people. For, suppose he were apprehended, we have no proof against him. He is not even (so far as we know, or as the facts appear to us) concerned with the gang in any of their robberies. If he were not discharged, it is very unlikely that he could receive any further punishment than being committed to prison as a rogue and vagabond; and of course ever afterwards his mouth would be so obstinately closed that he might as well, for our purposes, be deaf, dumb, blind, and an idiot." "Then," said the doctor impetuously, "I put it to you again, whether you think it reasonable that this promise to the girl should be considered binding; a promise made with the best and kindest intentions, but really" "Do not discuss the point, my dear young lady, pray," said Mr. Brownlow, interrupting Rose as she was about to speak. "The promise shall be kept. I don't think it will, in the slightest degree, interfere with our proceedings. But, before we can resolve upon any precise course of action, it will be necessary to see the girl; to ascertain from her whether she will point out this Monks, on the understanding that he is to be dealt with by us, and not by the law; or, if she will not, or cannot do that, to procure from her such an account of his haunts and | Oliver Twist |
“‘Disloyal’?” | Theign | We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed | so decently different--always and ever. We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed and even interested now. Lady | his lordship with his best and coldest amusement, “sell one of somebody else’s!” She was, however, not disconcerted. “Other people do other things--they appear to have done them, and to be doing them, all about us. But _we_ have been so decently different--always and ever. We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed and even interested now. Lady Grace stuck to her word. “That’s what it seems to _me!_” “It seems to you” --and his sarcasm here was easy-- “more disloyal to sell a picture than to buy one? Because we didn’t paint ‘em all ourselves, you know!” | left to you when I forge a cheque?” “If you had arrived at the necessity of forging a cheque,” she answered, “I should then resign myself to that of your selling a picture.” “But not short of that!” “Not short of that. Not one of ours.” “But I couldn’t,” said his lordship with his best and coldest amusement, “sell one of somebody else’s!” She was, however, not disconcerted. “Other people do other things--they appear to have done them, and to be doing them, all about us. But _we_ have been so decently different--always and ever. We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed and even interested now. Lady Grace stuck to her word. “That’s what it seems to _me!_” “It seems to you” --and his sarcasm here was easy-- “more disloyal to sell a picture than to buy one? Because we didn’t paint ‘em all ourselves, you know!” She threw up impatient hands. “I don’t ask you either to paint or to buy----!” “Oh, _that’s_ a mercy!” he interrupted, riding his irony hard; “and I’m glad to hear you at least let me off _such_ efforts! However, if it strikes you as gracefully filial to apply to your | kept her lighted eyes on him, he gave back her conscious stare for a minute, inwardly and rapidly turning things over, making connections, taking, as after some long and lamentable lapse of observation, a new strange measure of her: all to the upshot of his then speaking with a difference of tone, a recognition of still more of the odious than he had supposed, so that the case might really call for some coolness. “You keep bad company, Grace--it pays the devil with your sense of proportion. If you make this row when I sell a picture, what will be left to you when I forge a cheque?” “If you had arrived at the necessity of forging a cheque,” she answered, “I should then resign myself to that of your selling a picture.” “But not short of that!” “Not short of that. Not one of ours.” “But I couldn’t,” said his lordship with his best and coldest amusement, “sell one of somebody else’s!” She was, however, not disconcerted. “Other people do other things--they appear to have done them, and to be doing them, all about us. But _we_ have been so decently different--always and ever. We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed and even interested now. Lady Grace stuck to her word. “That’s what it seems to _me!_” “It seems to you” --and his sarcasm here was easy-- “more disloyal to sell a picture than to buy one? Because we didn’t paint ‘em all ourselves, you know!” She threw up impatient hands. “I don’t ask you either to paint or to buy----!” “Oh, _that’s_ a mercy!” he interrupted, riding his irony hard; “and I’m glad to hear you at least let me off _such_ efforts! However, if it strikes you as gracefully filial to apply to your father’s conduct so invidious a word,” he went on less scathingly, “you must take from him, in your turn, his quite other view of what makes disloyalty--understanding distinctly, by the same token, that he enjoins on you not to give an odious illustration of it, while he’s away, by discussing and deploring with any _one_ of your extraordinary friends any aspect or feature whatever of his walk and conversation. That--pressed as I am for time,” he went on with a glance at his watch while she remained silent-- “is the main sense of what I have to say to you; | at least were but the more determined to see him keep it up?” The girl’s justification, clearly, was very present to her, and not less obviously the truth that to make it strong she must, avoiding every side-issue, keep it very simple, “The only account I can give you, I think, is that I could but speak at such a moment as I felt, and that I felt--well, how can I say how deeply? If you can really bear to know, I feel so still I care in fact more than ever that we shouldn’t do such things. I care, if you like, to indiscretion--I care, if you like, to offence, to arrogance, to folly. But even as my last word to you before you leave England on the conclusion of such a step, I’m ready to cry out to you that you oughtn’t, you oughtn’t, you oughtn’t!” Her father, with wonder-moved, elevated brows and high commanding hand, checked her as in an act really of violence--save that, like an inflamed young priestess, she had already, in essence, delivered her message. “Hallo, hallo, hallo, my distracted daughter--no ‘crying out,’ if you please!” After which, while arrested but unabashed, she still kept her lighted eyes on him, he gave back her conscious stare for a minute, inwardly and rapidly turning things over, making connections, taking, as after some long and lamentable lapse of observation, a new strange measure of her: all to the upshot of his then speaking with a difference of tone, a recognition of still more of the odious than he had supposed, so that the case might really call for some coolness. “You keep bad company, Grace--it pays the devil with your sense of proportion. If you make this row when I sell a picture, what will be left to you when I forge a cheque?” “If you had arrived at the necessity of forging a cheque,” she answered, “I should then resign myself to that of your selling a picture.” “But not short of that!” “Not short of that. Not one of ours.” “But I couldn’t,” said his lordship with his best and coldest amusement, “sell one of somebody else’s!” She was, however, not disconcerted. “Other people do other things--they appear to have done them, and to be doing them, all about us. But _we_ have been so decently different--always and ever. We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed and even interested now. Lady Grace stuck to her word. “That’s what it seems to _me!_” “It seems to you” --and his sarcasm here was easy-- “more disloyal to sell a picture than to buy one? Because we didn’t paint ‘em all ourselves, you know!” She threw up impatient hands. “I don’t ask you either to paint or to buy----!” “Oh, _that’s_ a mercy!” he interrupted, riding his irony hard; “and I’m glad to hear you at least let me off _such_ efforts! However, if it strikes you as gracefully filial to apply to your father’s conduct so invidious a word,” he went on less scathingly, “you must take from him, in your turn, his quite other view of what makes disloyalty--understanding distinctly, by the same token, that he enjoins on you not to give an odious illustration of it, while he’s away, by discussing and deploring with any _one_ of your extraordinary friends any aspect or feature whatever of his walk and conversation. That--pressed as I am for time,” he went on with a glance at his watch while she remained silent-- “is the main sense of what I have to say to you; so that I count on your perfect conformity. When you have told me that I _may_ so count” --and casting about for his hat he espied it and went to take it up-- “I shall more cordially bid you good-bye.” His daughter looked as if she had been for some time expecting the law thus imposed upon her--had been seeing where he must come out; but in spite of this preparation she made him wait for his reply in such tension as he had himself created. “To Kitty I’ve practically said nothing--and she herself can tell you why: I’ve in fact scarcely seen her this fortnight. Putting aside then Amy Sandgate, the only person to whom I’ve spoken--of your ‘sacrifice,’ as I suppose you’ll let me call it?--is Mr. Hugh Crimble, whom you talk of as my ‘confederate’ at Dedborough.” Lord Theign recovered the name with relief. “Mr. Hugh Crimble--that’s it!--whom you so amazingly caused to be present, and apparently invited to be active, at a business that so little concerned him.” “He certainly took upon himself to be interested, as I had hoped he would. But it was because I had taken upon _my_ self--” “To act, yes,” Lord | of raising, to my best convenience, a considerable sum of money? You’ll be so good as to understand, once for all, that I recognise there no right of interference from any quarter--and also to let that knowledge govern your behaviour in my absence.” Lady Grace had thus for some minutes waited on his words--waited even as almost with anxiety for the safe conduct he might look to from some of the more extravagant of them. But he at least felt at the end--if it was an end--all he owed them; so that there was nothing for her but to accept as achieved his dreadful felicity. “You’re very angry with me, and I hope you won’t feel me simply ‘aggravating’ if I say that, thinking everything over, I’ve done my best to allow for that. But I _can_ answer your question if I do answer it by saying that my discovery of your possible sacrifice of one of our most beautiful things didn’t predispose me to decide in favour of a person--however ‘backed’ by you--for whose benefit the sacrifice was to take place. Frankly,” the girl pushed on, “I did quite hate, for the moment, everything that might make for such a mistake; and took the darkest view, let me also confess, of every one, without exception, connected with it I interceded with you, earnestly, for our precious picture, and you wouldn’t on any terms _have_ my intercession. On top of that Lord John blundered in, without timeliness or tact--and I’m afraid that, as I hadn’t been the least in love with him even before, he did have to take the consequence.” Lord Theign, with an elated swing of his person, greeted this as all he could possibly want. “You recognise then that your reception of him _was_ purely vindictive!--the meaning of which is that unless my conduct of my private interests, of which you know nothing whatever, happens to square with your superior wisdom you’ll put me under boycott all round! While you chatter about mistakes and blunders, and about our charming friend’s lack of the discretion of which you yourself set so grand an example, what account have you to offer of the scene you made me there before that fellow--your confederate, as he had all the air of being!--by giving it me with such effrontery that, if I had eminently done with him after his remarkable display, you at least were but the more determined to see him keep it up?” The girl’s justification, clearly, was very present to her, and not less obviously the truth that to make it strong she must, avoiding every side-issue, keep it very simple, “The only account I can give you, I think, is that I could but speak at such a moment as I felt, and that I felt--well, how can I say how deeply? If you can really bear to know, I feel so still I care in fact more than ever that we shouldn’t do such things. I care, if you like, to indiscretion--I care, if you like, to offence, to arrogance, to folly. But even as my last word to you before you leave England on the conclusion of such a step, I’m ready to cry out to you that you oughtn’t, you oughtn’t, you oughtn’t!” Her father, with wonder-moved, elevated brows and high commanding hand, checked her as in an act really of violence--save that, like an inflamed young priestess, she had already, in essence, delivered her message. “Hallo, hallo, hallo, my distracted daughter--no ‘crying out,’ if you please!” After which, while arrested but unabashed, she still kept her lighted eyes on him, he gave back her conscious stare for a minute, inwardly and rapidly turning things over, making connections, taking, as after some long and lamentable lapse of observation, a new strange measure of her: all to the upshot of his then speaking with a difference of tone, a recognition of still more of the odious than he had supposed, so that the case might really call for some coolness. “You keep bad company, Grace--it pays the devil with your sense of proportion. If you make this row when I sell a picture, what will be left to you when I forge a cheque?” “If you had arrived at the necessity of forging a cheque,” she answered, “I should then resign myself to that of your selling a picture.” “But not short of that!” “Not short of that. Not one of ours.” “But I couldn’t,” said his lordship with his best and coldest amusement, “sell one of somebody else’s!” She was, however, not disconcerted. “Other people do other things--they appear to have done them, and to be doing them, all about us. But _we_ have been so decently different--always and ever. We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed and even interested now. Lady Grace stuck to her word. “That’s what it seems to _me!_” “It seems to you” --and his sarcasm here was easy-- “more disloyal to sell a picture than to buy one? Because we didn’t paint ‘em all ourselves, you know!” She threw up impatient hands. “I don’t ask you either to paint or to buy----!” “Oh, _that’s_ a mercy!” he interrupted, riding his irony hard; “and I’m glad to hear you at least let me off _such_ efforts! However, if it strikes you as gracefully filial to apply to your father’s conduct so invidious a word,” he went on less scathingly, “you must take from him, in your turn, his quite other view of what makes disloyalty--understanding distinctly, by the same token, that he enjoins on you not to give an odious illustration of it, while he’s away, by discussing and deploring with any _one_ of your extraordinary friends any aspect or feature whatever of his walk and conversation. That--pressed as I am for time,” he went on with a glance at his watch while she remained silent-- “is the main sense of what I have to say to you; so that I count on your perfect conformity. When you have told me that I _may_ so count” --and casting about for his hat he espied it and went to take it up-- “I shall more cordially bid you good-bye.” His daughter looked as if she had been for some time expecting the law thus imposed upon her--had been seeing where he must come out; but in spite of this preparation she made him wait for his reply in such tension as he had himself created. “To Kitty I’ve practically said nothing--and she herself can tell you why: I’ve in fact scarcely seen her this fortnight. Putting aside then Amy Sandgate, the only person to whom I’ve spoken--of your ‘sacrifice,’ as I suppose you’ll let me call it?--is Mr. Hugh Crimble, whom you talk of as my ‘confederate’ at Dedborough.” Lord Theign recovered the name with relief. “Mr. Hugh Crimble--that’s it!--whom you so amazingly caused to be present, and apparently invited to be active, at a business that so little concerned him.” “He certainly took upon himself to be interested, as I had hoped he would. But it was because I had taken upon _my_ self--” “To act, yes,” Lord Theign broke in, “with the grossest want of delicacy! Well, it’s from that exactly that you’ll now forbear; and ‘interested’ as he may be--for which I’m deucedly obliged to him!--you’ll not speak to Mr. Crimble again.” “Never again?” --the girl put it as for full certitude. “Never of the question that I thus exclude. You may chatter your fill,” said his lordship curtly, “about any others.” “Why, the particular question you forbid,” Grace returned with great force, but as if saying something very reasonable-- “that question is _the_ question we care about: it’s our very ground of conversation.” “Then,” her father decreed, “your conversation will please to _dispense_ with a ground; or you’ll perhaps, better still--if that’s the only way!--dispense with your conversation.” Lady Grace took a moment as if to examine this more closely. “You require of me not to communicate with Mr. Crimble at all?” “Most assuredly I require it--since it’s to that you insist on reducing me.” He didn’t look reduced, the master of Dedborough, as he spoke--which was doubtless precisely because he held his head so high to affirm what he suffered. “Is it so essential to your comfort,” he demanded, “to hear him, or to make him, abuse me?” “‘Abusing’ you, father dear, has nothing whatever to do with it!” --his daughter had fairly lapsed, with a despairing gesture, to the tenderness involved in her compassion for his perversity. “We look at the thing in a much larger way,” she pursued, not heeding that she drew from him a sound of scorn for her “larger.” “It’s of our Treasure itself we talk--and of what can be _done_ in such cases; though with a close application, I admit, to the case that you embody.” “Ah,” Lord Theign asked as with absurd curiosity, “I embody a case?” “Wonderfully, father--as you do everything; and it’s the fact of its being exceptional,” she explained, “that makes it so difficult to deal with.” His lordship had a gape for it. “‘To deal with’? You’re undertaking to ‘deal’ with me?” She smiled more frankly now, as for a rift in the gloom. “Well, how can we help it if you _will_ be a case?” And then as her tone but visibly darkened his wonder: “What we’ve set our hearts on is saving the picture.” “What you’ve set your hearts on, in other words, is working straight against me?” But she persisted | say how deeply? If you can really bear to know, I feel so still I care in fact more than ever that we shouldn’t do such things. I care, if you like, to indiscretion--I care, if you like, to offence, to arrogance, to folly. But even as my last word to you before you leave England on the conclusion of such a step, I’m ready to cry out to you that you oughtn’t, you oughtn’t, you oughtn’t!” Her father, with wonder-moved, elevated brows and high commanding hand, checked her as in an act really of violence--save that, like an inflamed young priestess, she had already, in essence, delivered her message. “Hallo, hallo, hallo, my distracted daughter--no ‘crying out,’ if you please!” After which, while arrested but unabashed, she still kept her lighted eyes on him, he gave back her conscious stare for a minute, inwardly and rapidly turning things over, making connections, taking, as after some long and lamentable lapse of observation, a new strange measure of her: all to the upshot of his then speaking with a difference of tone, a recognition of still more of the odious than he had supposed, so that the case might really call for some coolness. “You keep bad company, Grace--it pays the devil with your sense of proportion. If you make this row when I sell a picture, what will be left to you when I forge a cheque?” “If you had arrived at the necessity of forging a cheque,” she answered, “I should then resign myself to that of your selling a picture.” “But not short of that!” “Not short of that. Not one of ours.” “But I couldn’t,” said his lordship with his best and coldest amusement, “sell one of somebody else’s!” She was, however, not disconcerted. “Other people do other things--they appear to have done them, and to be doing them, all about us. But _we_ have been so decently different--always and ever. We’ve never done anything disloyal.”<|quote|>“‘Disloyal’?”</|quote|>--he was more largely amazed and even interested now. Lady Grace stuck to her word. “That’s what it seems to _me!_” “It seems to you” --and his sarcasm here was easy-- “more disloyal to sell a picture than to buy one? Because we didn’t paint ‘em all ourselves, you know!” She threw up impatient hands. “I don’t ask you either to paint or to buy----!” “Oh, _that’s_ a mercy!” he interrupted, riding his irony hard; “and I’m glad to hear you at least let me off _such_ efforts! However, if it strikes you as gracefully filial to apply to your father’s conduct so invidious a word,” he went on less scathingly, “you must take from him, in your turn, his quite other view of what makes disloyalty--understanding distinctly, by the same token, that he enjoins on you not to give an odious illustration of it, while he’s away, by discussing and deploring with any _one_ of your extraordinary friends any aspect or feature whatever of his walk and conversation. That--pressed as I am for time,” he went on with a glance at his watch while she remained silent-- “is the main sense of what I have to say to you; so that I count on your perfect conformity. When you have told me that I _may_ so count” --and casting about for his hat he espied it and went to take it up-- “I shall more cordially bid you good-bye.” His daughter looked as if she had been for some time expecting the law thus imposed upon her--had been seeing where he must come out; but in spite of this preparation she made him wait for his reply | The Outcry |
"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow" | Aunt Millicent | very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and | doubt that s very true, very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and thought that there were signs | answered unhesitatingly: "Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I m afraid the ordinary man is a bit of a rascal" "And the ordinary woman?" "No, I don t like the ordinary woman either" "Ah, dear me, I ve no doubt that s very true, very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and thought that there were signs of distinct power in his brow. He would do well, she thought, to devote himself to satire. "Charles Lavington, you remember, was a solicitor," Mrs. Milvain interposed, rather resenting the waste of time involved in talking about fictitious people when | clients, young man, and the world will be the richer one of these days, I have no doubt. Tell me, how do we come out of it, now; better or worse than you expected?" Thus called upon to sum up the worth of human nature in a few words, Ralph answered unhesitatingly: "Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I m afraid the ordinary man is a bit of a rascal" "And the ordinary woman?" "No, I don t like the ordinary woman either" "Ah, dear me, I ve no doubt that s very true, very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and thought that there were signs of distinct power in his brow. He would do well, she thought, to devote himself to satire. "Charles Lavington, you remember, was a solicitor," Mrs. Milvain interposed, rather resenting the waste of time involved in talking about fictitious people when you might be talking about real people. "But you wouldn t remember him, Katharine." "Mr. Lavington? Oh, yes, I do," said Katharine, waking from other thoughts with her little start. "The summer we had a house near Tenby. I remember the field and the pond with the tadpoles, and making | connection was a mere piece of undergraduate folly. Arthur, I confess, has always seemed to me a bit of a fop; I can t imagine how Laura married him. But you say you re a solicitor, Mr. Denham. Now there are one or two things I should like to ask you about Shakespeare" She drew out her small, worn volume with some difficulty, opened it, and shook it in the air. "They say, nowadays, that Shakespeare was a lawyer. They say, that accounts for his knowledge of human nature. There s a fine example for you, Mr. Denham. Study your clients, young man, and the world will be the richer one of these days, I have no doubt. Tell me, how do we come out of it, now; better or worse than you expected?" Thus called upon to sum up the worth of human nature in a few words, Ralph answered unhesitatingly: "Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I m afraid the ordinary man is a bit of a rascal" "And the ordinary woman?" "No, I don t like the ordinary woman either" "Ah, dear me, I ve no doubt that s very true, very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and thought that there were signs of distinct power in his brow. He would do well, she thought, to devote himself to satire. "Charles Lavington, you remember, was a solicitor," Mrs. Milvain interposed, rather resenting the waste of time involved in talking about fictitious people when you might be talking about real people. "But you wouldn t remember him, Katharine." "Mr. Lavington? Oh, yes, I do," said Katharine, waking from other thoughts with her little start. "The summer we had a house near Tenby. I remember the field and the pond with the tadpoles, and making haystacks with Mr. Lavington." "She is right. There _was_ a pond with tadpoles," Mrs. Cosham corroborated. "Millais made studies of it for Ophelia. Some say that is the best picture he ever painted" "And I remember the dog chained up in the yard, and the dead snakes hanging in the toolhouse." "It was at Tenby that you were chased by the bull," Mrs. Milvain continued. "But that you couldn t remember, though it s true you were a wonderful child. Such eyes she had, Mr. Denham! I used to say to her father, She s watching us, and summing us | truly devoted to literature. "In my spare time," Denham reassured her. "In your spare time!" Mrs. Cosham echoed. "That is a proof of devotion, indeed." She half closed her eyes, and indulged herself in a fascinating picture of a briefless barrister lodged in a garret, writing immortal novels by the light of a farthing dip. But the romance which fell upon the figures of great writers and illumined their pages was no false radiance in her case. She carried her pocket Shakespeare about with her, and met life fortified by the words of the poets. How far she saw Denham, and how far she confused him with some hero of fiction, it would be hard to say. Literature had taken possession even of her memories. She was matching him, presumably, with certain characters in the old novels, for she came out, after a pause, with: "Um um Pendennis Warrington I could never forgive Laura," she pronounced energetically, "for not marrying George, in spite of everything. George Eliot did the very same thing; and Lewes was a little frog-faced man, with the manner of a dancing master. But Warrington, now, had everything in his favor; intellect, passion, romance, distinction, and the connection was a mere piece of undergraduate folly. Arthur, I confess, has always seemed to me a bit of a fop; I can t imagine how Laura married him. But you say you re a solicitor, Mr. Denham. Now there are one or two things I should like to ask you about Shakespeare" She drew out her small, worn volume with some difficulty, opened it, and shook it in the air. "They say, nowadays, that Shakespeare was a lawyer. They say, that accounts for his knowledge of human nature. There s a fine example for you, Mr. Denham. Study your clients, young man, and the world will be the richer one of these days, I have no doubt. Tell me, how do we come out of it, now; better or worse than you expected?" Thus called upon to sum up the worth of human nature in a few words, Ralph answered unhesitatingly: "Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I m afraid the ordinary man is a bit of a rascal" "And the ordinary woman?" "No, I don t like the ordinary woman either" "Ah, dear me, I ve no doubt that s very true, very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and thought that there were signs of distinct power in his brow. He would do well, she thought, to devote himself to satire. "Charles Lavington, you remember, was a solicitor," Mrs. Milvain interposed, rather resenting the waste of time involved in talking about fictitious people when you might be talking about real people. "But you wouldn t remember him, Katharine." "Mr. Lavington? Oh, yes, I do," said Katharine, waking from other thoughts with her little start. "The summer we had a house near Tenby. I remember the field and the pond with the tadpoles, and making haystacks with Mr. Lavington." "She is right. There _was_ a pond with tadpoles," Mrs. Cosham corroborated. "Millais made studies of it for Ophelia. Some say that is the best picture he ever painted" "And I remember the dog chained up in the yard, and the dead snakes hanging in the toolhouse." "It was at Tenby that you were chased by the bull," Mrs. Milvain continued. "But that you couldn t remember, though it s true you were a wonderful child. Such eyes she had, Mr. Denham! I used to say to her father, She s watching us, and summing us all up in her little mind. And they had a nurse in those days," she went on, telling her story with charming solemnity to Ralph, "who was a good woman, but engaged to a sailor. When she ought to have been attending to the baby, her eyes were on the sea. And Mrs. Hilbery allowed this girl Susan her name was to have him to stay in the village. They abused her goodness, I m sorry to say, and while they walked in the lanes, they stood the perambulator alone in a field where there was a bull. The animal became enraged by the red blanket in the perambulator, and Heaven knows what might have happened if a gentleman had not been walking by in the nick of time, and rescued Katharine in his arms!" "I think the bull was only a cow, Aunt Celia," said Katharine. "My darling, it was a great red Devonshire bull, and not long after it gored a man to death and had to be destroyed. And your mother forgave Susan a thing I could never have done." "Maggie s sympathies were entirely with Susan and the sailor, I am sure," said Mrs. Cosham, rather | pass his examinations, so they sent him to India a long voyage in those days, poor fellow. You had your own room, you know, and you did it up. But he will get his knighthood and a pension, I believe," she said, turning to Ralph, "only it is not England." "No," Mrs. Cosham confirmed her, "it is not England. In those days we thought an Indian Judgeship about equal to a county-court judgeship at home. His Honor a pretty title, but still, not at the top of the tree. However," she sighed, "if you have a wife and seven children, and people nowadays very quickly forget your father s name well, you have to take what you can get," she concluded. "And I fancy," Mrs. Milvain resumed, lowering her voice rather confidentially, "that John would have done more if it hadn t been for his wife, your Aunt Emily. She was a very good woman, devoted to him, of course, but she was not ambitious for him, and if a wife isn t ambitious for her husband, especially in a profession like the law, clients soon get to know of it. In our young days, Mr. Denham, we used to say that we knew which of our friends would become judges, by looking at the girls they married. And so it was, and so, I fancy, it always will be. I don t think," she added, summing up these scattered remarks, "that any man is really happy unless he succeeds in his profession." Mrs. Cosham approved of this sentiment with more ponderous sagacity from her side of the tea-table, in the first place by swaying her head, and in the second by remarking: "No, men are not the same as women. I fancy Alfred Tennyson spoke the truth about that as about many other things. How I wish he d lived to write The Prince a sequel to The Princess ! I confess I m almost tired of Princesses. We want some one to show us what a good man can be. We have Laura and Beatrice, Antigone and Cordelia, but we have no heroic man. How do you, as a poet, account for that, Mr. Denham?" "I m not a poet," said Ralph good-humoredly. "I m only a solicitor." "But you write, too?" Mrs. Cosham demanded, afraid lest she should be balked of her priceless discovery, a young man truly devoted to literature. "In my spare time," Denham reassured her. "In your spare time!" Mrs. Cosham echoed. "That is a proof of devotion, indeed." She half closed her eyes, and indulged herself in a fascinating picture of a briefless barrister lodged in a garret, writing immortal novels by the light of a farthing dip. But the romance which fell upon the figures of great writers and illumined their pages was no false radiance in her case. She carried her pocket Shakespeare about with her, and met life fortified by the words of the poets. How far she saw Denham, and how far she confused him with some hero of fiction, it would be hard to say. Literature had taken possession even of her memories. She was matching him, presumably, with certain characters in the old novels, for she came out, after a pause, with: "Um um Pendennis Warrington I could never forgive Laura," she pronounced energetically, "for not marrying George, in spite of everything. George Eliot did the very same thing; and Lewes was a little frog-faced man, with the manner of a dancing master. But Warrington, now, had everything in his favor; intellect, passion, romance, distinction, and the connection was a mere piece of undergraduate folly. Arthur, I confess, has always seemed to me a bit of a fop; I can t imagine how Laura married him. But you say you re a solicitor, Mr. Denham. Now there are one or two things I should like to ask you about Shakespeare" She drew out her small, worn volume with some difficulty, opened it, and shook it in the air. "They say, nowadays, that Shakespeare was a lawyer. They say, that accounts for his knowledge of human nature. There s a fine example for you, Mr. Denham. Study your clients, young man, and the world will be the richer one of these days, I have no doubt. Tell me, how do we come out of it, now; better or worse than you expected?" Thus called upon to sum up the worth of human nature in a few words, Ralph answered unhesitatingly: "Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I m afraid the ordinary man is a bit of a rascal" "And the ordinary woman?" "No, I don t like the ordinary woman either" "Ah, dear me, I ve no doubt that s very true, very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and thought that there were signs of distinct power in his brow. He would do well, she thought, to devote himself to satire. "Charles Lavington, you remember, was a solicitor," Mrs. Milvain interposed, rather resenting the waste of time involved in talking about fictitious people when you might be talking about real people. "But you wouldn t remember him, Katharine." "Mr. Lavington? Oh, yes, I do," said Katharine, waking from other thoughts with her little start. "The summer we had a house near Tenby. I remember the field and the pond with the tadpoles, and making haystacks with Mr. Lavington." "She is right. There _was_ a pond with tadpoles," Mrs. Cosham corroborated. "Millais made studies of it for Ophelia. Some say that is the best picture he ever painted" "And I remember the dog chained up in the yard, and the dead snakes hanging in the toolhouse." "It was at Tenby that you were chased by the bull," Mrs. Milvain continued. "But that you couldn t remember, though it s true you were a wonderful child. Such eyes she had, Mr. Denham! I used to say to her father, She s watching us, and summing us all up in her little mind. And they had a nurse in those days," she went on, telling her story with charming solemnity to Ralph, "who was a good woman, but engaged to a sailor. When she ought to have been attending to the baby, her eyes were on the sea. And Mrs. Hilbery allowed this girl Susan her name was to have him to stay in the village. They abused her goodness, I m sorry to say, and while they walked in the lanes, they stood the perambulator alone in a field where there was a bull. The animal became enraged by the red blanket in the perambulator, and Heaven knows what might have happened if a gentleman had not been walking by in the nick of time, and rescued Katharine in his arms!" "I think the bull was only a cow, Aunt Celia," said Katharine. "My darling, it was a great red Devonshire bull, and not long after it gored a man to death and had to be destroyed. And your mother forgave Susan a thing I could never have done." "Maggie s sympathies were entirely with Susan and the sailor, I am sure," said Mrs. Cosham, rather tartly. "My sister-in-law," she continued, "has laid her burdens upon Providence at every crisis in her life, and Providence, I must confess, has responded nobly, so far" "Yes," said Katharine, with a laugh, for she liked the rashness which irritated the rest of the family. "My mother s bulls always turn into cows at the critical moment." "Well," said Mrs. Milvain, "I m glad you have some one to protect you from bulls now." "I can t imagine William protecting any one from bulls," said Katharine. It happened that Mrs. Cosham had once more produced her pocket volume of Shakespeare, and was consulting Ralph upon an obscure passage in "Measure for Measure." He did not at once seize the meaning of what Katharine and her aunt were saying; William, he supposed, referred to some small cousin, for he now saw Katharine as a child in a pinafore; but, nevertheless, he was so much distracted that his eye could hardly follow the words on the paper. A moment later he heard them speak distinctly of an engagement ring. "I like rubies," he heard Katharine say. "To be imprison d in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world...." Mrs. Cosham intoned; at the same instant "Rodney" fitted itself to "William" in Ralph s mind. He felt convinced that Katharine was engaged to Rodney. His first sensation was one of violent rage with her for having deceived him throughout the visit, fed him with pleasant old wives tales, let him see her as a child playing in a meadow, shared her youth with him, while all the time she was a stranger entirely, and engaged to marry Rodney. But was it possible? Surely it was not possible. For in his eyes she was still a child. He paused so long over the book that Mrs. Cosham had time to look over his shoulder and ask her niece: "And have you settled upon a house yet, Katharine?" This convinced him of the truth of the monstrous idea. He looked up at once and said: "Yes, it s a difficult passage." His voice had changed so much, he spoke with such curtness and even with such contempt, that Mrs. Cosham looked at him fairly puzzled. Happily she belonged to a generation which expected uncouthness in its men, and she merely felt convinced that this Mr. Denham was very, very | echoed. "That is a proof of devotion, indeed." She half closed her eyes, and indulged herself in a fascinating picture of a briefless barrister lodged in a garret, writing immortal novels by the light of a farthing dip. But the romance which fell upon the figures of great writers and illumined their pages was no false radiance in her case. She carried her pocket Shakespeare about with her, and met life fortified by the words of the poets. How far she saw Denham, and how far she confused him with some hero of fiction, it would be hard to say. Literature had taken possession even of her memories. She was matching him, presumably, with certain characters in the old novels, for she came out, after a pause, with: "Um um Pendennis Warrington I could never forgive Laura," she pronounced energetically, "for not marrying George, in spite of everything. George Eliot did the very same thing; and Lewes was a little frog-faced man, with the manner of a dancing master. But Warrington, now, had everything in his favor; intellect, passion, romance, distinction, and the connection was a mere piece of undergraduate folly. Arthur, I confess, has always seemed to me a bit of a fop; I can t imagine how Laura married him. But you say you re a solicitor, Mr. Denham. Now there are one or two things I should like to ask you about Shakespeare" She drew out her small, worn volume with some difficulty, opened it, and shook it in the air. "They say, nowadays, that Shakespeare was a lawyer. They say, that accounts for his knowledge of human nature. There s a fine example for you, Mr. Denham. Study your clients, young man, and the world will be the richer one of these days, I have no doubt. Tell me, how do we come out of it, now; better or worse than you expected?" Thus called upon to sum up the worth of human nature in a few words, Ralph answered unhesitatingly: "Worse, Mrs. Cosham, a good deal worse. I m afraid the ordinary man is a bit of a rascal" "And the ordinary woman?" "No, I don t like the ordinary woman either" "Ah, dear me, I ve no doubt that s very true, very true." Mrs. Cosham sighed.<|quote|>"Swift would have agreed with you, anyhow"</|quote|>She looked at him, and thought that there were signs of distinct power in his brow. He would do well, she thought, to devote himself to satire. "Charles Lavington, you remember, was a solicitor," Mrs. Milvain interposed, rather resenting the waste of time involved in talking about fictitious people when you might be talking about real people. "But you wouldn t remember him, Katharine." "Mr. Lavington? Oh, yes, I do," said Katharine, waking from other thoughts with her little start. "The summer we had a house near Tenby. I remember the field and the pond with the tadpoles, and making haystacks with Mr. Lavington." "She is right. There _was_ a pond with tadpoles," Mrs. Cosham corroborated. "Millais made studies of it for Ophelia. Some say that is the best picture he ever painted" "And I remember the dog chained up in the yard, and the dead snakes hanging in the toolhouse." "It was at Tenby that you were chased by the bull," Mrs. Milvain continued. "But that you couldn t remember, though it s true you were a wonderful child. Such eyes she had, Mr. Denham! I used to say to her father, She s watching us, and summing us all up in her little mind. And they had a nurse in those days," she went on, telling her story with charming solemnity to Ralph, "who was a good woman, but engaged to a sailor. When she ought to have been attending to the baby, her eyes were on the sea. And Mrs. Hilbery allowed this girl Susan her name was to have him to stay in the village. They abused her goodness, I m sorry to say, and while they walked in the lanes, they stood the perambulator alone in a field where there was a bull. The animal became enraged by the red blanket in the perambulator, and Heaven knows what might have happened if a gentleman had not been walking | Night And Day |
“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.” | A guest of Gatsby's | no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back | he assured us positively. “Oh, no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward | much that,” argued Lucille sceptically; “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.” One of the men nodded in confirmation. “I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively. “Oh, no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.” She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to | trouble with anybody.” “Who doesn’t?” I inquired. “Gatsby. Somebody told me—” The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially. “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.” A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. “I don’t think it’s so much that,” argued Lucille sceptically; “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.” One of the men nodded in confirmation. “I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively. “Oh, no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.” She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world. The first supper—there would be another one after midnight—was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were | good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address—inside of a week I got a package from Croirier’s with a new evening gown in it.” “Did you keep it?” asked Jordan. “Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.” “There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that,” said the other girl eagerly. “He doesn’t want any trouble with anybody.” “Who doesn’t?” I inquired. “Gatsby. Somebody told me—” The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially. “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.” A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. “I don’t think it’s so much that,” argued Lucille sceptically; “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.” One of the men nodded in confirmation. “I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively. “Oh, no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.” She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world. The first supper—there would be another one after midnight—was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were spread around a table on the other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordan’s escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gaiety. “Let’s get out,” whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half-hour; “this | the steps. “Hello!” they cried together. “Sorry you didn’t win.” That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before. “You don’t know who we are,” said one of the girls in yellow, “but we met you here about a month ago.” “You’ve dyed your hair since then,” remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer’s basket. With Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble. “Do you come to these parties often?” inquired Jordan of the girl beside her. “The last one was the one I met you at,” answered the girl, in an alert confident voice. She turned to her companion: “Wasn’t it for you, Lucille?” It was for Lucille, too. “I like to come,” Lucille said. “I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address—inside of a week I got a package from Croirier’s with a new evening gown in it.” “Did you keep it?” asked Jordan. “Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.” “There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that,” said the other girl eagerly. “He doesn’t want any trouble with anybody.” “Who doesn’t?” I inquired. “Gatsby. Somebody told me—” The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially. “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.” A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. “I don’t think it’s so much that,” argued Lucille sceptically; “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.” One of the men nodded in confirmation. “I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively. “Oh, no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.” She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world. The first supper—there would be another one after midnight—was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were spread around a table on the other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordan’s escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gaiety. “Let’s get out,” whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half-hour; “this is much too polite for me.” We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host: I had never met him, she said, and it was making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melancholy way. The bar, where we glanced first, was crowded, but Gatsby was not there. She couldn’t find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn’t on the veranda. On a chance we tried an important-looking door, and walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with carved English oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas. A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot. “What do you think?” he demanded impetuously. “About what?” He waved his hand toward the bookshelves. “About that. As a matter of fact you needn’t bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They’re real.” “The books?” He nodded. “Absolutely real—have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real. Pages and—Here! Lemme show you.” | heart that was its own ticket of admission. I had been actually invited. A chauffeur in a uniform of robin’s-egg blue crossed my lawn early that Saturday morning with a surprisingly formal note from his employer: the honour would be entirely Gatsby’s, it said, if I would attend his “little party” that night. He had seen me several times, and had intended to call on me long before, but a peculiar combination of circumstances had prevented it—signed Jay Gatsby, in a majestic hand. Dressed up in white flannels I went over to his lawn a little after seven, and wandered around rather ill at ease among swirls and eddies of people I didn’t know—though here and there was a face I had noticed on the commuting train. I was immediately struck by the number of young Englishmen dotted about; all well dressed, all looking a little hungry, and all talking in low, earnest voices to solid and prosperous Americans. I was sure that they were selling something: bonds or insurance or automobiles. They were at least agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity and convinced that it was theirs for a few words in the right key. As soon as I arrived I made an attempt to find my host, but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed way, and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements, that I slunk off in the direction of the cocktail table—the only place in the garden where a single man could linger without looking purposeless and alone. I was on my way to get roaring drunk from sheer embarrassment when Jordan Baker came out of the house and stood at the head of the marble steps, leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden. Welcome or not, I found it necessary to attach myself to someone before I should begin to address cordial remarks to the passersby. “Hello!” I roared, advancing toward her. My voice seemed unnaturally loud across the garden. “I thought you might be here,” she responded absently as I came up. “I remembered you lived next door to—” She held my hand impersonally, as a promise that she’d take care of me in a minute, and gave ear to two girls in twin yellow dresses, who stopped at the foot of the steps. “Hello!” they cried together. “Sorry you didn’t win.” That was for the golf tournament. She had lost in the finals the week before. “You don’t know who we are,” said one of the girls in yellow, “but we met you here about a month ago.” “You’ve dyed your hair since then,” remarked Jordan, and I started, but the girls had moved casually on and her remark was addressed to the premature moon, produced like the supper, no doubt, out of a caterer’s basket. With Jordan’s slender golden arm resting in mine, we descended the steps and sauntered about the garden. A tray of cocktails floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble. “Do you come to these parties often?” inquired Jordan of the girl beside her. “The last one was the one I met you at,” answered the girl, in an alert confident voice. She turned to her companion: “Wasn’t it for you, Lucille?” It was for Lucille, too. “I like to come,” Lucille said. “I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address—inside of a week I got a package from Croirier’s with a new evening gown in it.” “Did you keep it?” asked Jordan. “Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.” “There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that,” said the other girl eagerly. “He doesn’t want any trouble with anybody.” “Who doesn’t?” I inquired. “Gatsby. Somebody told me—” The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially. “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.” A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. “I don’t think it’s so much that,” argued Lucille sceptically; “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.” One of the men nodded in confirmation. “I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively. “Oh, no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.” She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world. The first supper—there would be another one after midnight—was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were spread around a table on the other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordan’s escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gaiety. “Let’s get out,” whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half-hour; “this is much too polite for me.” We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host: I had never met him, she said, and it was making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melancholy way. The bar, where we glanced first, was crowded, but Gatsby was not there. She couldn’t find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn’t on the veranda. On a chance we tried an important-looking door, and walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with carved English oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas. A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot. “What do you think?” he demanded impetuously. “About what?” He waved his hand toward the bookshelves. “About that. As a matter of fact you needn’t bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They’re real.” “The books?” He nodded. “Absolutely real—have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real. Pages and—Here! Lemme show you.” Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the Stoddard Lectures. “See!” he cried triumphantly. “It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too—didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?” He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse. “Who brought you?” he demanded. “Or did you just come? I was brought. Most people were brought.” Jordan looked at him alertly, cheerfully, without answering. “I was brought by a woman named Roosevelt,” he continued. “Mrs. Claud Roosevelt. Do you know her? I met her somewhere last night. I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.” “Has it?” “A little bit, I think. I can’t tell yet. I’ve only been here an hour. Did I tell you about the books? They’re real. They’re—” “You told us.” We shook hands with him gravely and went back outdoors. There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden; old men pushing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles, superior couples holding each other tortuously, fashionably, and keeping in the corners—and a great number of single girls dancing individually or relieving the orchestra for a moment of the burden of the banjo or the traps. By midnight the hilarity had increased. A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian, and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz, and between the numbers people were doing “stunts” all over the garden, while happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky. A pair of stage twins, who turned out to be the girls in yellow, did a baby act in costume, and champagne was served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls. The moon had risen higher, and floating in the Sound was a triangle of silver scales, trembling a little to the stiff, tinny drip of the banjoes on the lawn. I was still with Jordan Baker. We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl, who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter. I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two | floated at us through the twilight, and we sat down at a table with the two girls in yellow and three men, each one introduced to us as Mr. Mumble. “Do you come to these parties often?” inquired Jordan of the girl beside her. “The last one was the one I met you at,” answered the girl, in an alert confident voice. She turned to her companion: “Wasn’t it for you, Lucille?” It was for Lucille, too. “I like to come,” Lucille said. “I never care what I do, so I always have a good time. When I was here last I tore my gown on a chair, and he asked me my name and address—inside of a week I got a package from Croirier’s with a new evening gown in it.” “Did you keep it?” asked Jordan. “Sure I did. I was going to wear it tonight, but it was too big in the bust and had to be altered. It was gas blue with lavender beads. Two hundred and sixty-five dollars.” “There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that,” said the other girl eagerly. “He doesn’t want any trouble with anybody.” “Who doesn’t?” I inquired. “Gatsby. Somebody told me—” The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially. “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.” A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. “I don’t think it’s so much that,” argued Lucille sceptically; “It’s more that he was a German spy during the war.” One of the men nodded in confirmation. “I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively. “Oh, no,” said the first girl,<|quote|>“it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.”</|quote|>As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.” She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world. The first supper—there would be another one after midnight—was now being served, and Jordan invited me to join her own party, who were spread around a table on the other side of the garden. There were three married couples and Jordan’s escort, a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo, and obviously under the impression that sooner or later Jordan was going to yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree. Instead of rambling, this party had preserved a dignified homogeneity, and assumed to itself the function of representing the staid nobility of the countryside—East Egg condescending to West Egg and carefully on guard against its spectroscopic gaiety. “Let’s get out,” whispered Jordan, after a somehow wasteful and inappropriate half-hour; “this is much too polite for me.” We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host: I had never met him, she said, and it was making me uneasy. The undergraduate nodded in a cynical, melancholy way. The bar, where we glanced first, was crowded, but Gatsby was not there. She couldn’t find him from the top of the steps, and he wasn’t on the veranda. On a chance we tried an important-looking door, and walked into a high Gothic library, panelled with carved English oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas. A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot. | The Great Gatsby |
"With an India shawl over her shoulders--" | Margaret | instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with | worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin." Bursts of disloyal | "The drawing-room reeks of smoke." "If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria s dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin." Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen s cigarette turned to a | Helen cried, "so don t you think it. And on the other hand, I don t the least mind if you find out, so don t you think you ve done anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette." "You do what you can for the house," said Margaret. "The drawing-room reeks of smoke." "If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria s dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin." Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen s cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the moon was rising. "That | etc. Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic? Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to that. So with our house--it must be feminine, and all we can do is to see that it isn t effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but won t, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates can do is to see that it isn t brutal." "That house being the W s house, I presume," said Tibby. "You re not going to be told about the W s, my child," Helen cried, "so don t you think it. And on the other hand, I don t the least mind if you find out, so don t you think you ve done anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette." "You do what you can for the house," said Margaret. "The drawing-room reeks of smoke." "If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria s dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin." Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen s cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the moon was rising. "That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into the dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate--and that is so firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea." For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address | of men you get here has always astonished me. If there is any danger it s the other way round." "Yes, but it s the wrong sort of men, Helen means." "No, I don t," corrected Helen. "We get the right sort of man, but the wrong side of him, and I say that s Tibby s fault. There ought to be a something about the house--an--I don t know what." "A touch of the W s, perhaps?" Helen put out her tongue. "Who are the W s?" asked Tibby. "The W s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don t, so there!" "I suppose that ours is a female house," said Margaret, "and one must just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don t mean that this house is full of women. I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it was irrevocably feminine, even in father s time. Now I m sure you understand! Well, I ll give you another example. It ll shock you, but I don t care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that the guests had been Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic? Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to that. So with our house--it must be feminine, and all we can do is to see that it isn t effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but won t, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates can do is to see that it isn t brutal." "That house being the W s house, I presume," said Tibby. "You re not going to be told about the W s, my child," Helen cried, "so don t you think it. And on the other hand, I don t the least mind if you find out, so don t you think you ve done anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette." "You do what you can for the house," said Margaret. "The drawing-room reeks of smoke." "If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria s dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin." Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen s cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the moon was rising. "That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into the dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate--and that is so firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea." For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him, and no name. CHAPTER VI WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk. The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility. He was not in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people whom he knew had dropped in, and counted no more. He knew that he was poor, and would admit it; he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority to the rich. This may be splendid of him. But he was inferior to most rich people, there is not the least doubt of it. He was not as courteous as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable. His mind and his body had been alike underfed, because he was poor, and because he was modern they were always craving better food. Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in | that I--Well, I must shut the front-door, I suppose. One more failure for Helen." "Yes, I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent," said Margaret. Seeing that her aunt did not understand, she added: "You remember rent ? It was one of father s words--Rent to the ideal, to his own faith in human nature. You remember how he would trust strangers, and if they fooled him he would say, It s better to be fooled than to be suspicious --that the confidence trick is the work of man, but the want-of-confidence trick is the work of the devil." "I remember something of the sort now," said Mrs. Munt, rather tartly, for she longed to add, "It was lucky that your father married a wife with money." But this was unkind, and she contented herself with, "Why, he might have stolen the little Ricketts picture as well." "Better that he had," said Helen stoutly. "No, I agree with Aunt Juley," said Margaret. "I d rather mistrust people than lose my little Ricketts. There are limits." Their brother, finding the incident commonplace, had stolen upstairs to see whether there were scones for tea. He warmed the teapot--almost too deftly--rejected the orange pekoe that the parlour-maid had provided, poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend, filled up with really boiling water, and now called to the ladies to be quick or they would lose the aroma. "All right, Auntie Tibby," called Helen, while Margaret, thoughtful again, said: "In a way, I wish we had a real boy in the house--the kind of boy who cares for men. It would make entertaining so much easier." "So do I," said her sister. "Tibby only cares for cultured females singing Brahms." And when they joined him she said rather sharply: "Why didn t you make that young man welcome, Tibby? You must do the host a little, you know. You ought to have taken his hat and coaxed him into stopping, instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women." Tibby sighed, and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead. "Oh, it s no good looking superior. I mean what I say." "Leave Tibby alone!" said Margaret, who could not bear her brother to be scolded. "Here s the house a regular hen-coop!" grumbled Helen. "Oh, my dear!" protested Mrs. Munt. "How can you say such dreadful things! The number of men you get here has always astonished me. If there is any danger it s the other way round." "Yes, but it s the wrong sort of men, Helen means." "No, I don t," corrected Helen. "We get the right sort of man, but the wrong side of him, and I say that s Tibby s fault. There ought to be a something about the house--an--I don t know what." "A touch of the W s, perhaps?" Helen put out her tongue. "Who are the W s?" asked Tibby. "The W s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don t, so there!" "I suppose that ours is a female house," said Margaret, "and one must just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don t mean that this house is full of women. I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it was irrevocably feminine, even in father s time. Now I m sure you understand! Well, I ll give you another example. It ll shock you, but I don t care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that the guests had been Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic? Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to that. So with our house--it must be feminine, and all we can do is to see that it isn t effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but won t, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates can do is to see that it isn t brutal." "That house being the W s house, I presume," said Tibby. "You re not going to be told about the W s, my child," Helen cried, "so don t you think it. And on the other hand, I don t the least mind if you find out, so don t you think you ve done anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette." "You do what you can for the house," said Margaret. "The drawing-room reeks of smoke." "If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria s dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin." Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen s cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the moon was rising. "That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into the dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate--and that is so firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea." For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him, and no name. CHAPTER VI WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk. The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility. He was not in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people whom he knew had dropped in, and counted no more. He knew that he was poor, and would admit it; he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority to the rich. This may be splendid of him. But he was inferior to most rich people, there is not the least doubt of it. He was not as courteous as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable. His mind and his body had been alike underfed, because he was poor, and because he was modern they were always craving better food. Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and proclaiming, "All men are equal--all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas," and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of Democracy are inaudible. As he walked away from Wickham Place, his first care was to prove that he was as good as the Miss Schlegels. Obscurely wounded in his pride, he tried to wound them in return. They were probably not ladies. Would real ladies have asked him to tea? They were certainly ill-natured and cold. At each step his feeling of superiority increased. Would a real lady have talked about stealing an umbrella? Perhaps they were thieves after all, and if he had gone into the house they would have clapped a chloroformed handkerchief over his face. He walked on complacently as far as the Houses of Parliament. There an empty stomach asserted itself, and told him that he was a fool. "Evening, Mr. Bast." "Evening, Mr. Dealtry." "Nice evening." "Evening." Mr. Dealtry, a fellow clerk, passed on, and Leonard stood wondering whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would take him, or whether he would walk. He decided to walk--it is no good giving in, and he had spent money enough at Queen s Hall--and he walked over Westminster Bridge, in front of St. Thomas s Hospital, and through the immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at Vauxhall. In the tunnel he paused and listened to the roar of the trains. A sharp pain darted through his head, and he was conscious of the exact form of his eye sockets. He pushed on for another mile, and did not slacken speed until he stood at the entrance of a road called Camelia Road which was at present his home. Here he stopped again, and glanced suspiciously to right and left, like a rabbit that is going to bolt into its hole. A block of flats, constructed with extreme cheapness, towered on either hand. Farther down the road two more blocks were being built, and beyond these an old house was being demolished to accommodate another pair. It was the kind of scene that may be observed all over London, whatever the locality--bricks and mortar rising and falling with the restlessness of the | Helen means." "No, I don t," corrected Helen. "We get the right sort of man, but the wrong side of him, and I say that s Tibby s fault. There ought to be a something about the house--an--I don t know what." "A touch of the W s, perhaps?" Helen put out her tongue. "Who are the W s?" asked Tibby. "The W s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don t, so there!" "I suppose that ours is a female house," said Margaret, "and one must just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don t mean that this house is full of women. I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it was irrevocably feminine, even in father s time. Now I m sure you understand! Well, I ll give you another example. It ll shock you, but I don t care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that the guests had been Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic? Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to that. So with our house--it must be feminine, and all we can do is to see that it isn t effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but won t, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates can do is to see that it isn t brutal." "That house being the W s house, I presume," said Tibby. "You re not going to be told about the W s, my child," Helen cried, "so don t you think it. And on the other hand, I don t the least mind if you find out, so don t you think you ve done anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette." "You do what you can for the house," said Margaret. "The drawing-room reeks of smoke." "If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria s dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if she d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin."<|quote|>"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"</|quote|>"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin." Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, "How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen s cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the moon was rising. "That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into the dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate--and that is so firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea." For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him, and no name. CHAPTER VI WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk. The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility. He was not in the abyss, but he could see it, and at | Howards End |
"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..." | Yegor Semyonitch | kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very | calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very glad you have come. Unutterably | he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and he stands like a post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too good for him." Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very glad you have come. Unutterably glad.... Thank you." Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the | Kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified. "What is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearful voice, flinging up his hands. "Styopka was carting dung at night, and tied the horse to an apple-tree! He twisted the reins round it, the rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and he stands like a post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too good for him." Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very glad you have come. Unutterably glad.... Thank you." Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the marvel of our century. While they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden with brilliant light. It grew warm. Foreseeing a long, bright, cheerful day, Kovrin recollected that it was only the beginning of May, and that he had before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long; | stroking his grey whiskers. "God bless you!... I am delighted about you ... delighted, my boy...." But suddenly he listened, and, with a terrible face, ran off and quickly disappeared behind the trees in a cloud of smoke. "Who tied this horse to an apple-tree?" Kovrin heard his despairing, heart-rending cry. "Who is the low scoundrel who has dared to tie this horse to an apple-tree? My God, my God! They have ruined everything; they have spoilt everything; they have done everything filthy, horrible, and abominable. The orchard's done for, the orchard's ruined. My God!" When he came back to Kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified. "What is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearful voice, flinging up his hands. "Styopka was carting dung at night, and tied the horse to an apple-tree! He twisted the reins round it, the rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and he stands like a post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too good for him." Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very glad you have come. Unutterably glad.... Thank you." Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the marvel of our century. While they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden with brilliant light. It grew warm. Foreseeing a long, bright, cheerful day, Kovrin recollected that it was only the beginning of May, and that he had before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long; and suddenly there stirred in his bosom a joyous, youthful feeling, such as he used to experience in his childhood, running about in that garden. And he hugged the old man and kissed him affectionately. Both of them, feeling touched, went indoors and drank tea out of old-fashioned china cups, with cream and satisfying krendels made with milk and eggs; and these trifles reminded Kovrin again of his childhood and boyhood. The delightful present was blended with the impressions of the past that stirred within him; there was a tightness at his heart; yet he was happy. He waited till | time they reached the house, Yegor Semyonitch had got up. Kovrin did not feel sleepy; he talked to the old man and went to the garden with him. Yegor Semyonitch was a tall, broad-shouldered, corpulent man, and he suffered from asthma, yet he walked so fast that it was hard work to hurry after him. He had an extremely preoccupied air; he was always hurrying somewhere, with an expression that suggested that if he were one minute late all would be ruined! "Here is a business, brother ..." he began, standing still to take breath. "On the surface of the ground, as you see, is frost; but if you raise the thermometer on a stick fourteen feet above the ground, there it is warm.... Why is that?" "I really don't know," said Kovrin, and he laughed. "H'm!... One can't know everything, of course.... However large the intellect may be, you can't find room for everything in it. I suppose you still go in chiefly for philosophy?" "Yes, I lecture in psychology; I am working at philosophy in general." "And it does not bore you?" "On the contrary, it's all I live for." "Well, God bless you!..." said Yegor Semyonitch, meditatively stroking his grey whiskers. "God bless you!... I am delighted about you ... delighted, my boy...." But suddenly he listened, and, with a terrible face, ran off and quickly disappeared behind the trees in a cloud of smoke. "Who tied this horse to an apple-tree?" Kovrin heard his despairing, heart-rending cry. "Who is the low scoundrel who has dared to tie this horse to an apple-tree? My God, my God! They have ruined everything; they have spoilt everything; they have done everything filthy, horrible, and abominable. The orchard's done for, the orchard's ruined. My God!" When he came back to Kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified. "What is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearful voice, flinging up his hands. "Styopka was carting dung at night, and tied the horse to an apple-tree! He twisted the reins round it, the rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and he stands like a post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too good for him." Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very glad you have come. Unutterably glad.... Thank you." Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the marvel of our century. While they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden with brilliant light. It grew warm. Foreseeing a long, bright, cheerful day, Kovrin recollected that it was only the beginning of May, and that he had before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long; and suddenly there stirred in his bosom a joyous, youthful feeling, such as he used to experience in his childhood, running about in that garden. And he hugged the old man and kissed him affectionately. Both of them, feeling touched, went indoors and drank tea out of old-fashioned china cups, with cream and satisfying krendels made with milk and eggs; and these trifles reminded Kovrin again of his childhood and boyhood. The delightful present was blended with the impressions of the past that stirred within him; there was a tightness at his heart; yet he was happy. He waited till Tanya was awake and had coffee with her, went for a walk, then went to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, making notes, and from time to time raised his eyes to look out at the open windows or at the fresh, still dewy flowers in the vases on the table; and again he dropped his eyes to his book, and it seemed to him as though every vein in his body was quivering and fluttering with pleasure. II In the country he led just as nervous and restless a life as in town. He read and wrote a great deal, he studied Italian, and when he was out for a walk, thought with pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again. He slept so little that every one wondered at him; if he accidentally dozed for half an hour in the daytime, he would lie awake all night, and, after a sleepless night, would feel cheerful and vigorous as though nothing had happened. He talked a great deal, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Very often, almost every day, young ladies of neighbouring families would come to the Pesotskys', and would sing and | feel strange with us now? But why do I ask you? You are a man, you live your own interesting life, you are somebody.... To grow apart is so natural! But however that may be, Andryusha, I want you to think of us as your people. We have a right to that." "I do, Tanya." "On your word of honour?" "Yes, on my word of honour." "You were surprised this evening that we have so many of your photographs. You know my father adores you. Sometimes it seems to me that he loves you more than he does me. He is proud of you. You are a clever, extraordinary man, you have made a brilliant career for yourself, and he is persuaded that you have turned out like this because he brought you up. I don't try to prevent him from thinking so. Let him." Dawn was already beginning, and that was especially perceptible from the distinctness with which the coils of smoke and the tops of the trees began to stand out in the air. "It's time we were asleep, though," said Tanya, "and it's cold, too." She took his arm. "Thank you for coming, Andryusha. We have only uninteresting acquaintances, and not many of them. We have only the garden, the garden, the garden, and nothing else. Standards, half-standards," she laughed. "Aports, Reinettes, Borovinkas, budded stocks, grafted stocks.... All, all our life has gone into the garden. I never even dream of anything but apples and pears. Of course, it is very nice and useful, but sometimes one longs for something else for variety. I remember that when you used to come to us for the summer holidays, or simply a visit, it always seemed to be fresher and brighter in the house, as though the covers had been taken off the lustres and the furniture. I was only a little girl then, but yet I understood it." She talked a long while and with great feeling. For some reason the idea came into his head that in the course of the summer he might grow fond of this little, weak, talkative creature, might be carried away and fall in love; in their position it was so possible and natural! This thought touched and amused him; he bent down to her sweet, preoccupied face and hummed softly: "'Onyegin, I won't conceal it; I madly love Tatiana....'" By the time they reached the house, Yegor Semyonitch had got up. Kovrin did not feel sleepy; he talked to the old man and went to the garden with him. Yegor Semyonitch was a tall, broad-shouldered, corpulent man, and he suffered from asthma, yet he walked so fast that it was hard work to hurry after him. He had an extremely preoccupied air; he was always hurrying somewhere, with an expression that suggested that if he were one minute late all would be ruined! "Here is a business, brother ..." he began, standing still to take breath. "On the surface of the ground, as you see, is frost; but if you raise the thermometer on a stick fourteen feet above the ground, there it is warm.... Why is that?" "I really don't know," said Kovrin, and he laughed. "H'm!... One can't know everything, of course.... However large the intellect may be, you can't find room for everything in it. I suppose you still go in chiefly for philosophy?" "Yes, I lecture in psychology; I am working at philosophy in general." "And it does not bore you?" "On the contrary, it's all I live for." "Well, God bless you!..." said Yegor Semyonitch, meditatively stroking his grey whiskers. "God bless you!... I am delighted about you ... delighted, my boy...." But suddenly he listened, and, with a terrible face, ran off and quickly disappeared behind the trees in a cloud of smoke. "Who tied this horse to an apple-tree?" Kovrin heard his despairing, heart-rending cry. "Who is the low scoundrel who has dared to tie this horse to an apple-tree? My God, my God! They have ruined everything; they have spoilt everything; they have done everything filthy, horrible, and abominable. The orchard's done for, the orchard's ruined. My God!" When he came back to Kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified. "What is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearful voice, flinging up his hands. "Styopka was carting dung at night, and tied the horse to an apple-tree! He twisted the reins round it, the rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and he stands like a post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too good for him." Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very glad you have come. Unutterably glad.... Thank you." Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the marvel of our century. While they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden with brilliant light. It grew warm. Foreseeing a long, bright, cheerful day, Kovrin recollected that it was only the beginning of May, and that he had before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long; and suddenly there stirred in his bosom a joyous, youthful feeling, such as he used to experience in his childhood, running about in that garden. And he hugged the old man and kissed him affectionately. Both of them, feeling touched, went indoors and drank tea out of old-fashioned china cups, with cream and satisfying krendels made with milk and eggs; and these trifles reminded Kovrin again of his childhood and boyhood. The delightful present was blended with the impressions of the past that stirred within him; there was a tightness at his heart; yet he was happy. He waited till Tanya was awake and had coffee with her, went for a walk, then went to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, making notes, and from time to time raised his eyes to look out at the open windows or at the fresh, still dewy flowers in the vases on the table; and again he dropped his eyes to his book, and it seemed to him as though every vein in his body was quivering and fluttering with pleasure. II In the country he led just as nervous and restless a life as in town. He read and wrote a great deal, he studied Italian, and when he was out for a walk, thought with pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again. He slept so little that every one wondered at him; if he accidentally dozed for half an hour in the daytime, he would lie awake all night, and, after a sleepless night, would feel cheerful and vigorous as though nothing had happened. He talked a great deal, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Very often, almost every day, young ladies of neighbouring families would come to the Pesotskys', and would sing and play the piano with Tanya; sometimes a young neighbour who was a good violinist would come, too. Kovrin listened with eagerness to the music and singing, and was exhausted by it, and this showed itself by his eyes closing and his head falling to one side. One day he was sitting on the balcony after evening tea, reading. At the same time, in the drawing-room, Tanya taking soprano, one of the young ladies a contralto, and the young man with his violin, were practising a well-known serenade of Braga's. Kovrin listened to the words--they were Russian--and could not understand their meaning. At last, leaving his book and listening attentively, he understood: a maiden, full of sick fancies, heard one night in her garden mysterious sounds, so strange and lovely that she was obliged to recognise them as a holy harmony which is unintelligible to us mortals, and so flies back to heaven. Kovrin's eyes began to close. He got up, and in exhaustion walked up and down the drawing-room, and then the dining-room. When the singing was over he took Tanya's arm, and with her went out on the balcony. "I have been all day thinking of a legend," he said. "I don't remember whether I have read it somewhere or heard it, but it is a strange and almost grotesque legend. To begin with, it is somewhat obscure. A thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black, wandered about the desert, somewhere in Syria or Arabia.... Some miles from where he was, some fisherman saw another black monk, who was moving slowly over the surface of a lake. This second monk was a mirage. Now forget all the laws of optics, which the legend does not recognise, and listen to the rest. From that mirage there was cast another mirage, then from that other a third, so that the image of the black monk began to be repeated endlessly from one layer of the atmosphere to another. So that he was seen at one time in Africa, at another in Spain, then in Italy, then in the Far North.... Then he passed out of the atmosphere of the earth, and now he is wandering all over the universe, still never coming into conditions in which he might disappear. Possibly he may be seen now in Mars or in some star of the Southern Cross. But, my dear, the real | of course.... However large the intellect may be, you can't find room for everything in it. I suppose you still go in chiefly for philosophy?" "Yes, I lecture in psychology; I am working at philosophy in general." "And it does not bore you?" "On the contrary, it's all I live for." "Well, God bless you!..." said Yegor Semyonitch, meditatively stroking his grey whiskers. "God bless you!... I am delighted about you ... delighted, my boy...." But suddenly he listened, and, with a terrible face, ran off and quickly disappeared behind the trees in a cloud of smoke. "Who tied this horse to an apple-tree?" Kovrin heard his despairing, heart-rending cry. "Who is the low scoundrel who has dared to tie this horse to an apple-tree? My God, my God! They have ruined everything; they have spoilt everything; they have done everything filthy, horrible, and abominable. The orchard's done for, the orchard's ruined. My God!" When he came back to Kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified. "What is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearful voice, flinging up his hands. "Styopka was carting dung at night, and tied the horse to an apple-tree! He twisted the reins round it, the rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and he stands like a post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too good for him." Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.<|quote|>"Well, God bless you!... God bless you!..."</|quote|>he muttered. "I am very glad you have come. Unutterably glad.... Thank you." Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the marvel of our century. While they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden with brilliant light. It grew warm. Foreseeing a long, bright, cheerful day, Kovrin recollected that it was only the beginning of May, and that he had before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long; and suddenly there stirred in his bosom a joyous, youthful feeling, such as he used to experience in his childhood, running about in that garden. And he hugged the old man and kissed him affectionately. Both of them, feeling touched, went indoors and drank tea out of old-fashioned china cups, with cream and satisfying krendels made with milk and eggs; and these trifles reminded Kovrin again of his childhood and boyhood. The delightful present was blended with the impressions of the past that stirred within him; there was a tightness at his heart; yet he was happy. He waited till Tanya was awake and had coffee with her, went for a walk, then went to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, making notes, and from time to time raised his eyes to look out at the open windows or at the fresh, still dewy flowers in the vases on the table; and again he dropped his eyes to his book, and it seemed to him as though every vein in his body was quivering and fluttering with pleasure. II In the country he led just as nervous and restless a life as in town. He read and wrote a great deal, he studied Italian, and when he was out for a walk, thought with pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again. He slept so little that every one wondered at him; if he accidentally dozed for half an hour in the daytime, he would lie awake all night, and, after a sleepless night, would feel cheerful and vigorous as | The Lady and the Dog and Other Stories (6) |
"It'll be good, all right," | Diana Barry | layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a | fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. | it to have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant." "Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them | she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, but I don't think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant." "Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come out after we go away and | morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy two days of it. It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see our pantry. It's a sight to behold. We're going to have jellied chicken and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, and fruit cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, but I don't think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant." "Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come out after we go away and take it for a scarf?" "You know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's mother had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief even in harmless dryads. "But it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne. "Every night before I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really sitting here, combing her locks with the spring | Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he'd find some excuse to be away that day. He'd got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn't mind him, but he's going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new minister, and a new minister's wife will frighten him to death." "I'll be as secret as the dead," assured Anne. "But oh, Marilla, will you let me make a cake for the occasion? I'd love to do something for Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time." "You can make a layer cake," promised Marilla. Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. Having the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they sat on the big red stones by the Dryad's Bubble and made rainbows in the water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam. "Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I'm to make in the morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy two days of it. It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see our pantry. It's a sight to behold. We're going to have jellied chicken and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, and fruit cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, but I don't think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant." "Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come out after we go away and take it for a scarf?" "You know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's mother had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief even in harmless dryads. "But it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne. "Every night before I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don't give up your faith in the dryad!" Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake. When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath. "I'm sure I haven't forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you think it will rise? Just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn't good? I used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated. Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says we'll never see the day when a Tory Government will do it. Marilla, what if that cake doesn't rise?" "We'll have plenty without it" was Marilla's unimpassioned way of looking at the subject. The cake | another kindred spirit. "Mrs. Allan is perfectly lovely," she announced one Sunday afternoon. "She's taken our class and she's a splendid teacher. She said right away she didn't think it was fair for the teacher to ask all the questions, and you know, Marilla, that is exactly what I've always thought. She said we could ask her any question we liked and I asked ever so many. I'm good at asking questions, Marilla." "I believe you" was Marilla's emphatic comment. "Nobody else asked any except Ruby Gillis, and she asked if there was to be a Sunday-school picnic this summer. I didn't think that was a very proper question to ask because it hadn't any connection with the lesson--the lesson was about Daniel in the lions' den--but Mrs. Allan just smiled and said she thought there would be. Mrs. Allan has a lovely smile; she has such _exquisite_ dimples in her cheeks. I wish I had dimples in my cheeks, Marilla. I'm not half so skinny as I was when I came here, but I have no dimples yet. If I had perhaps I could influence people for good. Mrs. Allan said we ought always to try to influence other people for good. She talked so nice about everything. I never knew before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always thought it was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan's isn't, and I'd like to be a Christian if I could be one like her. I wouldn't want to be one like Mr. Superintendent Bell." "It's very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said Marilla severely. "Mr. Bell is a real good man." "Oh, of course he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to get any comfort out of it. If I could be good I'd dance and sing all day because I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and sing and of course it wouldn't be dignified in a minister's wife. But I can just feel she's glad she's a Christian and that she'd be one even if she could get to heaven without it." "I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon," said Marilla reflectively. "They've been most everywhere but here. Let me see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But don't say a word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he'd find some excuse to be away that day. He'd got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn't mind him, but he's going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new minister, and a new minister's wife will frighten him to death." "I'll be as secret as the dead," assured Anne. "But oh, Marilla, will you let me make a cake for the occasion? I'd love to do something for Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time." "You can make a layer cake," promised Marilla. Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. Having the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they sat on the big red stones by the Dryad's Bubble and made rainbows in the water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam. "Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I'm to make in the morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy two days of it. It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see our pantry. It's a sight to behold. We're going to have jellied chicken and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, and fruit cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, but I don't think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant." "Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come out after we go away and take it for a scarf?" "You know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's mother had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief even in harmless dryads. "But it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne. "Every night before I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don't give up your faith in the dryad!" Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake. When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath. "I'm sure I haven't forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you think it will rise? Just suppose perhaps the baking powder isn't good? I used it out of the new can. And Mrs. Lynde says you can never be sure of getting good baking powder nowadays when everything is so adulterated. Mrs. Lynde says the Government ought to take the matter up, but she says we'll never see the day when a Tory Government will do it. Marilla, what if that cake doesn't rise?" "We'll have plenty without it" was Marilla's unimpassioned way of looking at the subject. The cake did rise, however, and came out of the oven as light and feathery as golden foam. Anne, flushed with delight, clapped it together with layers of ruby jelly and, in imagination, saw Mrs. Allan eating it and possibly asking for another piece! "You'll be using the best tea set, of course, Marilla," she said. "Can I fix the table with ferns and wild roses?" "I think that's all nonsense," sniffed Marilla. "In my opinion it's the eatables that matter and not flummery decorations." "Mrs. Barry had _her_ table decorated," said Anne, who was not entirely guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent, "and the minister paid her an elegant compliment. He said it was a feast for the eye as well as the palate." "Well, do as you like," said Marilla, who was quite determined not to be surpassed by Mrs. Barry or anybody else. "Only mind you leave enough room for the dishes and the food." Anne laid herself out to decorate in a manner and after a fashion that should leave Mrs. Barry's nowhere. Having abundance of roses and ferns and a very artistic taste of her own, she made that tea table such a thing of beauty that when the minister and his wife sat down to it they exclaimed in chorus over it loveliness. "It's Anne's doings," said Marilla, grimly just; and Anne felt that Mrs. Allan's approving smile was almost too much happiness for this world. Matthew was there, having been inveigled into the party only goodness and Anne knew how. He had been in such a state of shyness and nervousness that Marilla had given him up in despair, but Anne took him in hand so successfully that he now sat at the table in his best clothes and white collar and talked to the minister not uninterestingly. He never said a word to Mrs. Allan, but that perhaps was not to be expected. All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne's layer cake was passed. Mrs. Allan, having already been helped to a bewildering variety, declined it. But Marilla, seeing the disappointment on Anne's face, said smilingly: "Oh, you must take a piece of this, Mrs. Allan. Anne made it on purpose for you." "In that case I must sample it," laughed Mrs. Allan, helping herself to a plump triangle, as did also the minister and Marilla. Mrs. Allan took a mouthful | such a cheerful thing. I always thought it was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan's isn't, and I'd like to be a Christian if I could be one like her. I wouldn't want to be one like Mr. Superintendent Bell." "It's very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said Marilla severely. "Mr. Bell is a real good man." "Oh, of course he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to get any comfort out of it. If I could be good I'd dance and sing all day because I was glad of it. I suppose Mrs. Allan is too old to dance and sing and of course it wouldn't be dignified in a minister's wife. But I can just feel she's glad she's a Christian and that she'd be one even if she could get to heaven without it." "I suppose we must have Mr. and Mrs. Allan up to tea someday soon," said Marilla reflectively. "They've been most everywhere but here. Let me see. Next Wednesday would be a good time to have them. But don't say a word to Matthew about it, for if he knew they were coming he'd find some excuse to be away that day. He'd got so used to Mr. Bentley he didn't mind him, but he's going to find it hard to get acquainted with a new minister, and a new minister's wife will frighten him to death." "I'll be as secret as the dead," assured Anne. "But oh, Marilla, will you let me make a cake for the occasion? I'd love to do something for Mrs. Allan, and you know I can make a pretty good cake by this time." "You can make a layer cake," promised Marilla. Monday and Tuesday great preparations went on at Green Gables. Having the minister and his wife to tea was a serious and important undertaking, and Marilla was determined not to be eclipsed by any of the Avonlea housekeepers. Anne was wild with excitement and delight. She talked it all over with Diana Tuesday night in the twilight, as they sat on the big red stones by the Dryad's Bubble and made rainbows in the water with little twigs dipped in fir balsam. "Everything is ready, Diana, except my cake which I'm to make in the morning, and the baking-powder biscuits which Marilla will make just before teatime. I assure you, Diana, that Marilla and I have had a busy two days of it. It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to tea. I never went through such an experience before. You should just see our pantry. It's a sight to behold. We're going to have jellied chicken and cold tongue. We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, and fruit cake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both, in case the minister is dyspeptic and can't eat new. Mrs. Lynde says ministers are dyspeptic, but I don't think Mr. Allan has been a minister long enough for it to have had a bad effect on him. I just grow cold when I think of my layer cake. Oh, Diana, what if it shouldn't be good! I dreamed last night that I was chased all around by a fearful goblin with a big layer cake for a head."<|quote|>"It'll be good, all right,"</|quote|>assured Diana, who was a very comfortable sort of friend. "I'm sure that piece of the one you made that we had for lunch in Idlewild two weeks ago was perfectly elegant." "Yes; but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good," sighed Anne, setting a particularly well-balsamed twig afloat. "However, I suppose I shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour. Oh, look, Diana, what a lovely rainbow! Do you suppose the dryad will come out after we go away and take it for a scarf?" "You know there is no such thing as a dryad," said Diana. Diana's mother had found out about the Haunted Wood and had been decidedly angry over it. As a result Diana had abstained from any further imitative flights of imagination and did not think it prudent to cultivate a spirit of belief even in harmless dryads. "But it's so easy to imagine there is," said Anne. "Every night before I go to bed, I look out of my window and wonder if the dryad is really sitting here, combing her locks with the spring for a mirror. Sometimes I look for her footprints in the dew in the morning. Oh, Diana, don't give up your faith in the dryad!" Wednesday morning came. Anne got up at sunrise because she was too excited to sleep. She had caught a severe cold in the head by reason of her dabbling in the spring on the preceding evening; but nothing short of absolute pneumonia could have quenched her interest in culinary matters that morning. After breakfast she proceeded to make her cake. When she finally shut the oven door upon it she drew a long breath. "I'm sure I haven't forgotten anything this time, Marilla. But do you think it | Anne Of Green Gables |
Bill went down the bank. | No speaker | They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, | down?" "Down is the best. They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, I don't want one. If | a fly. You got any McGintys?" "There's some in there." "You going to fish bait?" "Yeah. I'm going to fish the dam here." "Well, I'll take the fly-book, then." He tied on a fly. "Where'd I better go? Up or down?" "Down is the best. They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, I don't want one. If they won't take a fly I'll just flick it around." Bill was down below watching the stream. "Say," he called up against the noise of the dam. "How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?" "All right," | dam that crossed the river. Bill put the pack against one of the trees and we jointed up the rods, put on the reels, tied on leaders, and got ready to fish. "You're sure this thing has trout in it?" Bill asked. "It's full of them." "I'm going to fish a fly. You got any McGintys?" "There's some in there." "You going to fish bait?" "Yeah. I'm going to fish the dam here." "Well, I'll take the fly-book, then." He tied on a fly. "Where'd I better go? Up or down?" "Down is the best. They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, I don't want one. If they won't take a fly I'll just flick it around." Bill was down below watching the stream. "Say," he called up against the noise of the dam. "How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?" "All right," I shouted. Bill waved his hand and started down the stream. I found the two wine-bottles in the pack, and carried them up the road to where the water of a spring flowed out of an iron pipe. There was a board over the spring and I lifted it and, | have any fishing at all." It was a long walk and the country was very fine, but we were tired when we came down the steep road that led out of the wooded hills into the valley of the Rio de la Fabrica. The road came out from the shadow of the woods into the hot sun. Ahead was a river-valley. Beyond the river was a steep hill. There was a field of buckwheat on the hill. We saw a white house under some trees on the hillside. It was very hot and we stopped under some trees beside a dam that crossed the river. Bill put the pack against one of the trees and we jointed up the rods, put on the reels, tied on leaders, and got ready to fish. "You're sure this thing has trout in it?" Bill asked. "It's full of them." "I'm going to fish a fly. You got any McGintys?" "There's some in there." "You going to fish bait?" "Yeah. I'm going to fish the dam here." "Well, I'll take the fly-book, then." He tied on a fly. "Where'd I better go? Up or down?" "Down is the best. They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, I don't want one. If they won't take a fly I'll just flick it around." Bill was down below watching the stream. "Say," he called up against the noise of the dam. "How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?" "All right," I shouted. Bill waved his hand and started down the stream. I found the two wine-bottles in the pack, and carried them up the road to where the water of a spring flowed out of an iron pipe. There was a board over the spring and I lifted it and, knocking the corks firmly into the bottles, lowered them down into the water. It was so cold my hand and wrist felt numbed. I put back the slab of wood, and hoped nobody would find the wine. I got my rod that was leaning against the tree, took the bait-can and landing-net, and walked out onto the dam. It was built to provide a head of water for driving logs. The gate was up, and I sat on one of the squared timbers and watched the smooth apron of water before the river tumbled into the falls. In the white | on climbing. Sometimes it dipped down but rose again steeply. All the time we heard the cattle in the woods. Finally, the road came out on the top of the hills. We were on the top of the height of land that was the highest part of the range of wooded hills we had seen from Burguete. There were wild strawberries growing on the sunny side of the ridge in a little clearing in the trees. Ahead the road came out of the forest and went along the shoulder of the ridge of hills. The hills ahead were not wooded, and there were great fields of yellow gorse. Way off we saw the steep bluffs, dark with trees and jutting with gray stone, that marked the course of the Irati River. "We have to follow this road along the ridge, cross these hills, go through the woods on the far hills, and come down to the Irati valley," I pointed out to Bill. "That's a hell of a hike." "It's too far to go and fish and come back the same day, comfortably." "Comfortably. That's a nice word. We'll have to go like hell to get there and back and have any fishing at all." It was a long walk and the country was very fine, but we were tired when we came down the steep road that led out of the wooded hills into the valley of the Rio de la Fabrica. The road came out from the shadow of the woods into the hot sun. Ahead was a river-valley. Beyond the river was a steep hill. There was a field of buckwheat on the hill. We saw a white house under some trees on the hillside. It was very hot and we stopped under some trees beside a dam that crossed the river. Bill put the pack against one of the trees and we jointed up the rods, put on the reels, tied on leaders, and got ready to fish. "You're sure this thing has trout in it?" Bill asked. "It's full of them." "I'm going to fish a fly. You got any McGintys?" "There's some in there." "You going to fish bait?" "Yeah. I'm going to fish the dam here." "Well, I'll take the fly-book, then." He tied on a fly. "Where'd I better go? Up or down?" "Down is the best. They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, I don't want one. If they won't take a fly I'll just flick it around." Bill was down below watching the stream. "Say," he called up against the noise of the dam. "How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?" "All right," I shouted. Bill waved his hand and started down the stream. I found the two wine-bottles in the pack, and carried them up the road to where the water of a spring flowed out of an iron pipe. There was a board over the spring and I lifted it and, knocking the corks firmly into the bottles, lowered them down into the water. It was so cold my hand and wrist felt numbed. I put back the slab of wood, and hoped nobody would find the wine. I got my rod that was leaning against the tree, took the bait-can and landing-net, and walked out onto the dam. It was built to provide a head of water for driving logs. The gate was up, and I sat on one of the squared timbers and watched the smooth apron of water before the river tumbled into the falls. In the white water at the foot of the dam it was deep. As I baited up, a trout shot up out of the white water into the falls and was carried down. Before I could finish baiting, another trout jumped at the falls, making the same lovely arc and disappearing into the water that was thundering down. I put on a good-sized sinker and dropped into the white water close to the edge of the timbers of the dam. I did not feel the first trout strike. When I started to pull up I felt that I had one and brought him, fighting and bending the rod almost double, out of the boiling water at the foot of the falls, and swung him up and onto the dam. He was a good trout, and I banged his head against the timber so that he quivered out straight, and then slipped him into my bag. While I had him on, several trout had jumped at the falls. As soon as I baited up and dropped in again I hooked another and brought him in the same way. In a little while I had six. They were all about the same size. I laid | That was what the Civil War was about. Abraham Lincoln was a faggot. He was in love with General Grant. So was Jefferson Davis. Lincoln just freed the slaves on a bet. The Dred Scott case was framed by the Anti-Saloon League. Sex explains it all. The Colonel's Lady and Judy O'Grady are Lesbians under their skin." He stopped. "Want to hear some more?" "Shoot," I said. "I don't know any more. Tell you some more at lunch." "Old Bill," I said. "You bum!" We packed the lunch and two bottles of wine in the rucksack, and Bill put it on. I carried the rod-case and the landing-nets slung over my back. We started up the road and then went across a meadow and found a path that crossed the fields and went toward the woods on the slope of the first hill. We walked across the fields on the sandy path. The fields were rolling and grassy and the grass was short from the sheep grazing. The cattle were up in the hills. We heard their bells in the woods. The path crossed a stream on a foot-log. The log was surfaced off, and there was a sapling bent across for a rail. In the flat pool beside the stream tadpoles spotted the sand. We went up a steep bank and across the rolling fields. Looking back we saw Burguete, white houses and red roofs, and the white road with a truck going along it and the dust rising. Beyond the fields we crossed another faster-flowing stream. A sandy road led down to the ford and beyond into the woods. The path crossed the stream on another foot-log below the ford, and joined the road, and we went into the woods. It was a beech wood and the trees were very old. Their roots bulked above the ground and the branches were twisted. We walked on the road between the thick trunks of the old beeches and the sunlight came through the leaves in light patches on the grass. The trees were big, and the foliage was thick but it was not gloomy. There was no undergrowth, only the smooth grass, very green and fresh, and the big gray trees well spaced as though it were a park. "This is country," Bill said. The road went up a hill and we got into thick woods, and the road kept on climbing. Sometimes it dipped down but rose again steeply. All the time we heard the cattle in the woods. Finally, the road came out on the top of the hills. We were on the top of the height of land that was the highest part of the range of wooded hills we had seen from Burguete. There were wild strawberries growing on the sunny side of the ridge in a little clearing in the trees. Ahead the road came out of the forest and went along the shoulder of the ridge of hills. The hills ahead were not wooded, and there were great fields of yellow gorse. Way off we saw the steep bluffs, dark with trees and jutting with gray stone, that marked the course of the Irati River. "We have to follow this road along the ridge, cross these hills, go through the woods on the far hills, and come down to the Irati valley," I pointed out to Bill. "That's a hell of a hike." "It's too far to go and fish and come back the same day, comfortably." "Comfortably. That's a nice word. We'll have to go like hell to get there and back and have any fishing at all." It was a long walk and the country was very fine, but we were tired when we came down the steep road that led out of the wooded hills into the valley of the Rio de la Fabrica. The road came out from the shadow of the woods into the hot sun. Ahead was a river-valley. Beyond the river was a steep hill. There was a field of buckwheat on the hill. We saw a white house under some trees on the hillside. It was very hot and we stopped under some trees beside a dam that crossed the river. Bill put the pack against one of the trees and we jointed up the rods, put on the reels, tied on leaders, and got ready to fish. "You're sure this thing has trout in it?" Bill asked. "It's full of them." "I'm going to fish a fly. You got any McGintys?" "There's some in there." "You going to fish bait?" "Yeah. I'm going to fish the dam here." "Well, I'll take the fly-book, then." He tied on a fly. "Where'd I better go? Up or down?" "Down is the best. They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, I don't want one. If they won't take a fly I'll just flick it around." Bill was down below watching the stream. "Say," he called up against the noise of the dam. "How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?" "All right," I shouted. Bill waved his hand and started down the stream. I found the two wine-bottles in the pack, and carried them up the road to where the water of a spring flowed out of an iron pipe. There was a board over the spring and I lifted it and, knocking the corks firmly into the bottles, lowered them down into the water. It was so cold my hand and wrist felt numbed. I put back the slab of wood, and hoped nobody would find the wine. I got my rod that was leaning against the tree, took the bait-can and landing-net, and walked out onto the dam. It was built to provide a head of water for driving logs. The gate was up, and I sat on one of the squared timbers and watched the smooth apron of water before the river tumbled into the falls. In the white water at the foot of the dam it was deep. As I baited up, a trout shot up out of the white water into the falls and was carried down. Before I could finish baiting, another trout jumped at the falls, making the same lovely arc and disappearing into the water that was thundering down. I put on a good-sized sinker and dropped into the white water close to the edge of the timbers of the dam. I did not feel the first trout strike. When I started to pull up I felt that I had one and brought him, fighting and bending the rod almost double, out of the boiling water at the foot of the falls, and swung him up and onto the dam. He was a good trout, and I banged his head against the timber so that he quivered out straight, and then slipped him into my bag. While I had him on, several trout had jumped at the falls. As soon as I baited up and dropped in again I hooked another and brought him in the same way. In a little while I had six. They were all about the same size. I laid them out, side by side, all their heads pointing the same way, and looked at them. They were beautifully colored and firm and hard from the cold water. It was a hot day, so I slit them all and shucked out the insides, gills and all, and tossed them over across the river. I took the trout ashore, washed them in the cold, smoothly heavy water above the dam, and then picked some ferns and packed them all in the bag, three trout on a layer of ferns, then another layer of fems, then three more trout, and then covered them with ferns. They looked nice in the ferns, and now the bag was bulky, and I put it in the shade of the tree. It was very hot on the dam, so I put my worm-can in the shade with the bag, and got a book out of the pack and settled down under the tree to read until Bill should come up for lunch. It was a little past noon and there was not much shade, but I sat against the trunk of two of the trees that grew together, and read. The book was something by A. E. W. Mason, and I was reading a wonderful story about a man who had been frozen in the Alps and then fallen into a glacier and disappeared, and his bride was going to wait twenty-four years exactly for his body to come out on the moraine, while her true love waited too, and they were still waiting when Bill came up. "Get any?" he asked. He had his rod and his bag and his net all in one hand, and he was sweating. I hadn't heard him come up, because of the noise from the dam. "Six. What did you get?" Bill sat down, opened up his bag, laid a big trout on the grass. He took out three more, each one a little bigger than the last, and laid them side by side in the shade from the tree. His face was sweaty and happy. "How are yours?" "Smaller." "Let's see them." "They're packed." "How big are they really?" "They're all about the size of your smallest." "You're not holding out on me?" "I wish I were." "Get them all on worms?" "Yes." "You lazy bum!" Bill put the trout in the bag and started for the river, | went up a steep bank and across the rolling fields. Looking back we saw Burguete, white houses and red roofs, and the white road with a truck going along it and the dust rising. Beyond the fields we crossed another faster-flowing stream. A sandy road led down to the ford and beyond into the woods. The path crossed the stream on another foot-log below the ford, and joined the road, and we went into the woods. It was a beech wood and the trees were very old. Their roots bulked above the ground and the branches were twisted. We walked on the road between the thick trunks of the old beeches and the sunlight came through the leaves in light patches on the grass. The trees were big, and the foliage was thick but it was not gloomy. There was no undergrowth, only the smooth grass, very green and fresh, and the big gray trees well spaced as though it were a park. "This is country," Bill said. The road went up a hill and we got into thick woods, and the road kept on climbing. Sometimes it dipped down but rose again steeply. All the time we heard the cattle in the woods. Finally, the road came out on the top of the hills. We were on the top of the height of land that was the highest part of the range of wooded hills we had seen from Burguete. There were wild strawberries growing on the sunny side of the ridge in a little clearing in the trees. Ahead the road came out of the forest and went along the shoulder of the ridge of hills. The hills ahead were not wooded, and there were great fields of yellow gorse. Way off we saw the steep bluffs, dark with trees and jutting with gray stone, that marked the course of the Irati River. "We have to follow this road along the ridge, cross these hills, go through the woods on the far hills, and come down to the Irati valley," I pointed out to Bill. "That's a hell of a hike." "It's too far to go and fish and come back the same day, comfortably." "Comfortably. That's a nice word. We'll have to go like hell to get there and back and have any fishing at all." It was a long walk and the country was very fine, but we were tired when we came down the steep road that led out of the wooded hills into the valley of the Rio de la Fabrica. The road came out from the shadow of the woods into the hot sun. Ahead was a river-valley. Beyond the river was a steep hill. There was a field of buckwheat on the hill. We saw a white house under some trees on the hillside. It was very hot and we stopped under some trees beside a dam that crossed the river. Bill put the pack against one of the trees and we jointed up the rods, put on the reels, tied on leaders, and got ready to fish. "You're sure this thing has trout in it?" Bill asked. "It's full of them." "I'm going to fish a fly. You got any McGintys?" "There's some in there." "You going to fish bait?" "Yeah. I'm going to fish the dam here." "Well, I'll take the fly-book, then." He tied on a fly. "Where'd I better go? Up or down?" "Down is the best. They're plenty up above, too."<|quote|>Bill went down the bank.</|quote|>"Take a worm can." "No, I don't want one. If they won't take a fly I'll just flick it around." Bill was down below watching the stream. "Say," he called up against the noise of the dam. "How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?" "All right," I shouted. Bill waved his hand and started down the stream. I found the two wine-bottles in the pack, and carried them up the road to where the water of a spring flowed out of an iron pipe. There was a board over the spring and I lifted it and, knocking the corks firmly into the bottles, lowered them down into the water. It was so cold my hand and wrist felt numbed. I put back the slab of wood, and hoped nobody would find the wine. I got my rod that was leaning against the tree, took the bait-can and landing-net, and walked out onto the dam. It was built to provide a head of water for driving logs. The gate was up, and I sat on one of the squared timbers and watched the smooth apron of water before the river tumbled into the falls. In the white water at the foot of the dam it was deep. As I baited up, a trout shot up out of the white water into the falls and was carried down. Before I could finish baiting, another trout jumped at the falls, making the same lovely arc and disappearing into the water that was thundering down. I put on a good-sized sinker and dropped into the white water close to the edge of the timbers of the dam. I did not feel the first trout strike. When I started to pull up I felt that I had one and brought him, fighting and bending the rod almost double, out of the boiling water at the foot of the falls, and swung him up and onto the dam. He was a good trout, and I banged his head against the timber so that he quivered out straight, and then slipped him into my bag. While I had him on, several trout had jumped at the falls. As soon as I baited up and dropped in again I hooked another and brought him in the same way. In a little while I had six. They were all about the same size. I laid them out, side by side, all their heads pointing the same way, and looked at them. They were beautifully colored and firm and hard from the cold water. It was a hot day, so I slit them all and shucked out the insides, gills and all, and tossed them over across the river. I took the trout ashore, washed them in the cold, smoothly heavy water above the dam, and then picked some ferns and packed them all in the bag, three trout on a layer of ferns, then another layer of fems, then three more trout, and then covered them with ferns. They looked nice in the ferns, and now the bag was bulky, and I put it in the shade of the tree. It was very hot on the dam, so I put my worm-can in the shade with the bag, and got a book out of the pack and settled down under the tree to read until Bill should come up for lunch. It was a little past noon and there was not much shade, but I sat | The Sun Also Rises |
"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?" | Maurice Oakley | been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there | It 's what I 've been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there awhile before dinner. But he | in this matter. I know that such things must jar on your delicate nature. But I am a plain hard-headed business man, and I can attend to it without distaste." "But I hate to shove everything unpleasant off on you, It 's what I 've been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there awhile before dinner. But he was not alone two minutes." "Why, he would be out of the question anyway. Who else?" "Hamilton was up yesterday." "Alone?" "Yes, for a while. His boy, Joe, shaved me, and Jack was up for a while brushing my clothes." | 'll have a detective down and see what we can do in this matter." Frank gave a scarcely perceptible start. "I do so hate such things," he said; "and, anyway, what 's the use? They 'll never find out where the stuff went to." "Oh, you need not be troubled in this matter. I know that such things must jar on your delicate nature. But I am a plain hard-headed business man, and I can attend to it without distaste." "But I hate to shove everything unpleasant off on you, It 's what I 've been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there awhile before dinner. But he was not alone two minutes." "Why, he would be out of the question anyway. Who else?" "Hamilton was up yesterday." "Alone?" "Yes, for a while. His boy, Joe, shaved me, and Jack was up for a while brushing my clothes." "Then it lies between Jack and Joe?" Frank hesitated. "Neither one was left alone, though." "Then only Hamilton and Esterton have been alone for any time in your room since you left the key in your cabinet?" "Those are the only ones of whom I know anything. What others went | planned. I do not ask it, I command it." The younger man looked up quickly. "Pardon me, Frank, for using those words and at such a time. You know how near my heart your success lies, and to hear you talk of giving it all up makes me forget myself. Forgive me, but you 'll go back, won't you?" "You are too good, Maurice," said Frank impulsively, "and I will go back, and I 'll try to redeem myself." "There is no redeeming of yourself to do, my dear boy; all you have to do is to mature yourself. We 'll have a detective down and see what we can do in this matter." Frank gave a scarcely perceptible start. "I do so hate such things," he said; "and, anyway, what 's the use? They 'll never find out where the stuff went to." "Oh, you need not be troubled in this matter. I know that such things must jar on your delicate nature. But I am a plain hard-headed business man, and I can attend to it without distaste." "But I hate to shove everything unpleasant off on you, It 's what I 've been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there awhile before dinner. But he was not alone two minutes." "Why, he would be out of the question anyway. Who else?" "Hamilton was up yesterday." "Alone?" "Yes, for a while. His boy, Joe, shaved me, and Jack was up for a while brushing my clothes." "Then it lies between Jack and Joe?" Frank hesitated. "Neither one was left alone, though." "Then only Hamilton and Esterton have been alone for any time in your room since you left the key in your cabinet?" "Those are the only ones of whom I know anything. What others went in during the day, of course, I know nothing about. It could n't have been either Esterton or Hamilton." "Not Esterton, no." "And Hamilton is beyond suspicion." "No servant is beyond suspicion." "I would trust Hamilton anywhere," said Frank stoutly, "and with anything." "That 's noble of you, Frank, and I would have done the same, but we must remember that we are not in the old days now. The negroes are becoming less faithful and less contented, and more 's the pity, and a deal more ambitious, although I have never had any unfaithfulness on the part of Hamilton | leaving me the bulk of the fortune; but we won't discuss that now. What I want you to understand, though, is that the money is yours as well as mine, and you are always welcome to it." The artist shook his head. "No, Maurice," he said, "I can accept no more from you. I have already used up all my own money and too much of yours in this hopeless fight. I don't suppose I was ever cut out for an artist, or I 'd have done something really notable in this time, and would not be a burden upon those who care for me. No, I 'll give up going to Paris and find some work to do." "Frank, Frank, be silent. This is nonsense, Give up your art? You shall not do it. You shall go to Paris as usual. Leslie and I have perfect faith in you. You shall not give up on account of this misfortune. What are the few paltry dollars to me or to you?" "Nothing, nothing, I know. It is n't the money, it 's the principle of the thing." "Principle be hanged! You go back to Paris to-morrow, just as you had planned. I do not ask it, I command it." The younger man looked up quickly. "Pardon me, Frank, for using those words and at such a time. You know how near my heart your success lies, and to hear you talk of giving it all up makes me forget myself. Forgive me, but you 'll go back, won't you?" "You are too good, Maurice," said Frank impulsively, "and I will go back, and I 'll try to redeem myself." "There is no redeeming of yourself to do, my dear boy; all you have to do is to mature yourself. We 'll have a detective down and see what we can do in this matter." Frank gave a scarcely perceptible start. "I do so hate such things," he said; "and, anyway, what 's the use? They 'll never find out where the stuff went to." "Oh, you need not be troubled in this matter. I know that such things must jar on your delicate nature. But I am a plain hard-headed business man, and I can attend to it without distaste." "But I hate to shove everything unpleasant off on you, It 's what I 've been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there awhile before dinner. But he was not alone two minutes." "Why, he would be out of the question anyway. Who else?" "Hamilton was up yesterday." "Alone?" "Yes, for a while. His boy, Joe, shaved me, and Jack was up for a while brushing my clothes." "Then it lies between Jack and Joe?" Frank hesitated. "Neither one was left alone, though." "Then only Hamilton and Esterton have been alone for any time in your room since you left the key in your cabinet?" "Those are the only ones of whom I know anything. What others went in during the day, of course, I know nothing about. It could n't have been either Esterton or Hamilton." "Not Esterton, no." "And Hamilton is beyond suspicion." "No servant is beyond suspicion." "I would trust Hamilton anywhere," said Frank stoutly, "and with anything." "That 's noble of you, Frank, and I would have done the same, but we must remember that we are not in the old days now. The negroes are becoming less faithful and less contented, and more 's the pity, and a deal more ambitious, although I have never had any unfaithfulness on the part of Hamilton to complain of before." "Then do not condemn him now." "I shall not condemn any one until I have proof positive of his guilt or such clear circumstantial evidence that my reason is satisfied." "I do not believe that you will ever have that against old Hamilton." "This spirit of trust does you credit, Frank, and I very much hope that you may be right. But as soon as a negro like Hamilton learns the value of money and begins to earn it, at the same time he begins to covet some easy and rapid way of securing it. The old negro knew nothing of the value of money. When he stole, he stole hams and bacon and chickens. These were his immediate necessities and the things he valued. The present laughs at this tendency without knowing the cause. The present negro resents the laugh, and he has learned to value other things than those which satisfy his belly." Frank looked bored. "But pardon me for boring you. I know you want to go to bed. Go and leave everything to me." The young man reluctantly withdrew, and Maurice went to the telephone and rung up the police station. As | let 's talk of it now. Come, let 's go back to our guests. Don't look so cut up about it, Frank, old man. It is n't as bad as it might be, and you must n't show a gloomy face to-night." The younger man pulled himself together, and re-entered the room with his brother. In a few minutes his gaiety had apparently returned. When they rejoined the ladies, even their quick eyes could detect in his demeanour no trace of the annoying thing that had occurred. His face did not change until, with a wealth of fervent congratulations, he had bade the last guest good-bye. Then he turned to his brother. "When Leslie is in bed, come into the library. I will wait for you there," he said, and walked sadly away. "Poor, foolish Frank," mused his brother, "as if the loss could matter to him." III THE THEFT Frank was very pale when his brother finally came to him at the appointed place. He sat limply in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the floor. "Come, brace up now, Frank, and tell me about it." At the sound of his brother's voice he started and looked up as though he had been dreaming. "I don't know what you 'll think of me, Maurice," he said; "I have never before been guilty of such criminal carelessness." "Don't stop to accuse yourself. Our only hope in this matter lies in prompt action. Where was the money?" "In the oak cabinet and lying in the bureau drawer. Such a thing as a theft seemed so foreign to this place that I was never very particular about the box. But I did not know until I went to it to-night that the last time I had opened it I had forgotten to take the key out. It all flashed over me in a second when I saw it shining there. Even then I did n't suspect anything. You don't know how I felt to open that cabinet and find all my money gone. It 's awful." "Don't worry. How much was there in all?" "Nine hundred and eighty-six dollars, most of which, I am ashamed to say, I had accepted from you." "You have no right to talk that way, Frank; you know I do not begrudge a cent you want. I have never felt that my father did quite right in leaving me the bulk of the fortune; but we won't discuss that now. What I want you to understand, though, is that the money is yours as well as mine, and you are always welcome to it." The artist shook his head. "No, Maurice," he said, "I can accept no more from you. I have already used up all my own money and too much of yours in this hopeless fight. I don't suppose I was ever cut out for an artist, or I 'd have done something really notable in this time, and would not be a burden upon those who care for me. No, I 'll give up going to Paris and find some work to do." "Frank, Frank, be silent. This is nonsense, Give up your art? You shall not do it. You shall go to Paris as usual. Leslie and I have perfect faith in you. You shall not give up on account of this misfortune. What are the few paltry dollars to me or to you?" "Nothing, nothing, I know. It is n't the money, it 's the principle of the thing." "Principle be hanged! You go back to Paris to-morrow, just as you had planned. I do not ask it, I command it." The younger man looked up quickly. "Pardon me, Frank, for using those words and at such a time. You know how near my heart your success lies, and to hear you talk of giving it all up makes me forget myself. Forgive me, but you 'll go back, won't you?" "You are too good, Maurice," said Frank impulsively, "and I will go back, and I 'll try to redeem myself." "There is no redeeming of yourself to do, my dear boy; all you have to do is to mature yourself. We 'll have a detective down and see what we can do in this matter." Frank gave a scarcely perceptible start. "I do so hate such things," he said; "and, anyway, what 's the use? They 'll never find out where the stuff went to." "Oh, you need not be troubled in this matter. I know that such things must jar on your delicate nature. But I am a plain hard-headed business man, and I can attend to it without distaste." "But I hate to shove everything unpleasant off on you, It 's what I 've been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there awhile before dinner. But he was not alone two minutes." "Why, he would be out of the question anyway. Who else?" "Hamilton was up yesterday." "Alone?" "Yes, for a while. His boy, Joe, shaved me, and Jack was up for a while brushing my clothes." "Then it lies between Jack and Joe?" Frank hesitated. "Neither one was left alone, though." "Then only Hamilton and Esterton have been alone for any time in your room since you left the key in your cabinet?" "Those are the only ones of whom I know anything. What others went in during the day, of course, I know nothing about. It could n't have been either Esterton or Hamilton." "Not Esterton, no." "And Hamilton is beyond suspicion." "No servant is beyond suspicion." "I would trust Hamilton anywhere," said Frank stoutly, "and with anything." "That 's noble of you, Frank, and I would have done the same, but we must remember that we are not in the old days now. The negroes are becoming less faithful and less contented, and more 's the pity, and a deal more ambitious, although I have never had any unfaithfulness on the part of Hamilton to complain of before." "Then do not condemn him now." "I shall not condemn any one until I have proof positive of his guilt or such clear circumstantial evidence that my reason is satisfied." "I do not believe that you will ever have that against old Hamilton." "This spirit of trust does you credit, Frank, and I very much hope that you may be right. But as soon as a negro like Hamilton learns the value of money and begins to earn it, at the same time he begins to covet some easy and rapid way of securing it. The old negro knew nothing of the value of money. When he stole, he stole hams and bacon and chickens. These were his immediate necessities and the things he valued. The present laughs at this tendency without knowing the cause. The present negro resents the laugh, and he has learned to value other things than those which satisfy his belly." Frank looked bored. "But pardon me for boring you. I know you want to go to bed. Go and leave everything to me." The young man reluctantly withdrew, and Maurice went to the telephone and rung up the police station. As Maurice had said, he was a plain, hard-headed business man, and it took very few words for him to put the Chief of Police in possession of the principal facts of the case. A detective was detailed to take charge of the case, and was started immediately, so that he might be upon the ground as soon after the commission of the crime as possible. When he came he insisted that if he was to do anything he must question the robbed man and search his room at once. Oakley protested, but the detective was adamant. Even now the presence in the room of a man uninitiated into the mysteries of criminal methods might be destroying the last vestige of a really important clue. The master of the house had no alternative save to yield. Together they went to the artist's room. A light shone out through the crack under the door. "I am sorry to disturb you again, Frank, but may we come in?" "Who is with you?" "The detective." "I did not know he was to come to-night." "The chief thought it better." "All right in a moment." There was a sound of moving around, and in a short time the young fellow, partly undressed, opened the door. To the detective's questions he answered in substance what he had told before. He also brought out the cabinet. It was a strong oak box, uncarven, but bound at the edges with brass. The key was still in the lock, where Frank had left it on discovering his loss. They raised the lid. The cabinet contained two compartments, one for letters and a smaller one for jewels and trinkets. "When you opened this cabinet, your money was gone?" "Yes." "Were any of your papers touched?" "No." "How about your jewels?" "I have but few and they were elsewhere." The detective examined the room carefully, its approaches, and the hall-ways without. He paused knowingly at a window that overlooked the flat top of a porch. "Do you ever leave this window open?" "It is almost always so." "Is this porch on the front of the house?" "No, on the side." "What else is out that way?" Frank and Maurice looked at each other. The younger man hesitated and put his hand to his head. Maurice answered grimly, "My butler's cottage is on that side and a little way back." "Uh huh! | on account of this misfortune. What are the few paltry dollars to me or to you?" "Nothing, nothing, I know. It is n't the money, it 's the principle of the thing." "Principle be hanged! You go back to Paris to-morrow, just as you had planned. I do not ask it, I command it." The younger man looked up quickly. "Pardon me, Frank, for using those words and at such a time. You know how near my heart your success lies, and to hear you talk of giving it all up makes me forget myself. Forgive me, but you 'll go back, won't you?" "You are too good, Maurice," said Frank impulsively, "and I will go back, and I 'll try to redeem myself." "There is no redeeming of yourself to do, my dear boy; all you have to do is to mature yourself. We 'll have a detective down and see what we can do in this matter." Frank gave a scarcely perceptible start. "I do so hate such things," he said; "and, anyway, what 's the use? They 'll never find out where the stuff went to." "Oh, you need not be troubled in this matter. I know that such things must jar on your delicate nature. But I am a plain hard-headed business man, and I can attend to it without distaste." "But I hate to shove everything unpleasant off on you, It 's what I 've been doing all my life."<|quote|>"Never mind that. Now tell me, who was the last person you remember in your room?"</|quote|>"Oh, Esterton was up there awhile before dinner. But he was not alone two minutes." "Why, he would be out of the question anyway. Who else?" "Hamilton was up yesterday." "Alone?" "Yes, for a while. His boy, Joe, shaved me, and Jack was up for a while brushing my clothes." "Then it lies between Jack and Joe?" Frank hesitated. "Neither one was left alone, though." "Then only Hamilton and Esterton have been alone for any time in your room since you left the key in your cabinet?" "Those are the only ones of whom I know anything. What others went in during the day, of course, I know nothing about. It could n't have been either Esterton or Hamilton." "Not Esterton, no." "And Hamilton is beyond suspicion." "No servant is beyond suspicion." "I would trust Hamilton anywhere," said Frank stoutly, "and with anything." "That 's noble of you, Frank, and I would have done the same, but we must remember that we are not in the old days now. The negroes are becoming less faithful and less contented, and more 's the pity, and a deal more ambitious, although I have never had any unfaithfulness on the part of Hamilton to complain of before." "Then do not condemn him now." "I shall not condemn any one until I have proof positive of his guilt or such clear circumstantial evidence that my reason is satisfied." "I do not believe that you will ever have that against old Hamilton." "This spirit of trust does you credit, Frank, and I very much hope that you may be right. But as soon as a negro like Hamilton learns the value of money and begins to earn it, at the same time he begins to covet some easy and rapid way of securing it. The old negro knew nothing of the value of money. When he stole, he stole hams and bacon and chickens. These were his immediate necessities and the things he valued. The present laughs at this tendency without knowing the cause. The present negro resents the laugh, and he has learned to value other things than those which satisfy his belly." Frank looked bored. "But pardon me for boring you. I know you want to go to bed. Go and leave everything to me." The young man reluctantly withdrew, and Maurice went to the telephone and rung up the police station. As Maurice had said, he was a plain, hard-headed business man, and it took very | The Sport Of The Gods |
puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word. | No speaker | "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home | moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten | safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody | was her excitement. "Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the _very first_--you and Gilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!" Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does | the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. "Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the _very first_--you and Gilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!" Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a spring evening." "I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think _once_," ?What if I should come out first?' "quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to | this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely away. "I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood," he told Anne. "I'm just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me suddenly whether I've passed or not." When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Her appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished. Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne's paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if he hadn't better vote Grit at the next election. But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. "Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the _very first_--you and Gilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!" Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a spring evening." "I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think _once_," ?What if I should come out first?' "quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and tell the good news to the others." They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. "Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first--or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful." "Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy." "You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying to hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But that good soul said heartily: "I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in saying it. You're a credit to your friends, Anne, that's what, and we're all proud of you." That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen | But we don't really know anything about it and won't until the pass list is out. That won't be for a fortnight. Fancy living a fortnight in such suspense! I wish I could go to sleep and never wake up until it is over." Diana knew it would be useless to ask how Gilbert Blythe had fared, so she merely said: "Oh, you'll pass all right. Don't worry." "I'd rather not pass at all than not come out pretty well up on the list," flashed Anne, by which she meant--and Diana knew she meant--that success would be incomplete and bitter if she did not come out ahead of Gilbert Blythe. With this end in view Anne had strained every nerve during the examinations. So had Gilbert. They had met and passed each other on the street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination. She knew that all Avonlea junior was wondering which would come out first; she even knew that Jimmy Glover and Ned Wright had a bet on the question and that Josie Pye had said there was no doubt in the world that Gilbert would be first; and she felt that her humiliation would be unbearable if she failed. But she had another and nobler motive for wishing to do well. She wanted to "pass high" for the sake of Matthew and Marilla--especially Matthew. Matthew had declared to her his conviction that she "would beat the whole Island." That, Anne felt, was something it would be foolish to hope for even in the wildest dreams. But she did hope fervently that she would be among the first ten at least, so that she might see Matthew's kindly brown eyes gleam with pride in her achievement. That, she felt, would be a sweet reward indeed for all her hard work and patient grubbing among unimaginative equations and conjugations. At the end of the fortnight Anne took to "haunting" the post office also, in the distracted company of Jane, Ruby, and Josie, opening the Charlottetown dailies with shaking hands and cold, sinkaway feelings as bad as any experienced during the Entrance week. Charlie and Gilbert were not above doing this too, but Moody Spurgeon stayed resolutely away. "I haven't got the grit to go there and look at a paper in cold blood," he told Anne. "I'm just going to wait until somebody comes and tells me suddenly whether I've passed or not." When three weeks had gone by without the pass list appearing Anne began to feel that she really couldn't stand the strain much longer. Her appetite failed and her interest in Avonlea doings languished. Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne's paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if he hadn't better vote Grit at the next election. But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. "Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the _very first_--you and Gilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!" Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a spring evening." "I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think _once_," ?What if I should come out first?' "quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and tell the good news to the others." They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. "Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first--or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful." "Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy." "You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying to hide her extreme pride in Anne from Mrs. Rachel's critical eye. But that good soul said heartily: "I just guess she has done well, and far be it from me to be backward in saying it. You're a credit to your friends, Anne, that's what, and we're all proud of you." That night Anne, who had wound up the delightful evening with a serious little talk with Mrs. Allan at the manse, knelt sweetly by her open window in a great sheen of moonshine and murmured a prayer of gratitude and aspiration that came straight from her heart. There was in it thankfulness for the past and reverent petition for the future; and when she slept on her white pillow her dreams were as fair and bright and beautiful as maidenhood might desire. CHAPTER XXXIII. The Hotel Concert "PUT on your white organdy, by all means, Anne," advised Diana decidedly. They were together in the east gable chamber; outside it was only twilight--a lovely yellowish-green twilight with a clear-blue cloudless sky. A big round moon, slowly deepening from her pallid luster into burnished silver, hung over the Haunted Wood; the air was full of sweet summer sounds--sleepy birds twittering, freakish breezes, faraway voices and laughter. But in Anne's room the blind was drawn and the lamp lighted, for an important toilet was being made. The east gable was a very different place from what it had been on that night four years before, when Anne had felt its bareness penetrate to the marrow of her spirit with its inhospitable chill. Changes had crept in, Marilla conniving at them resignedly, until it was as sweet and dainty a nest as a young girl could desire. The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of Anne's early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable she lamented them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no "mahogany furniture," but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a low white bed. Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests | doings languished. Mrs. Lynde wanted to know what else you could expect with a Tory superintendent of education at the head of affairs, and Matthew, noting Anne's paleness and indifference and the lagging steps that bore her home from the post office every afternoon, began seriously to wonder if he hadn't better vote Grit at the next election. But one evening the news came. Anne was sitting at her open window, for the time forgetful of the woes of examinations and the cares of the world, as she drank in the beauty of the summer dusk, sweet-scented with flower breaths from the garden below and sibilant and rustling from the stir of poplars. The eastern sky above the firs was flushed faintly pink from the reflection of the west, and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. "Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the _very first_--you and Gilbert both--you're ties--but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!" Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed--there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne,"<|quote|>puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word.</|quote|>"Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago--it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail--and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well--they're halfway up--and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a spring evening." "I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this--yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think _once_," ?What if I should come out first?' "quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and tell the good news to the others." They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. "Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first--or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful." "Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list delightedly. "I knew you could beat them all easy." "You've done pretty well, I must say, Anne," said Marilla, trying to hide her | Anne Of Green Gables |
"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?" | Mrs. Elton | inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather | stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather for exploring!--These delays and disappointments | cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston." "You | One could not leave her out." Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private. It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston." "You had better explore to Donwell," replied Mr. Knightley. "That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast." If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I should like | avoid; an arrangement which would probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs. Elton's party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper. "I am glad you approve of what I have done," said he very comfortably. "But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not leave her out." Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private. It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston." "You had better explore to Donwell," replied Mr. Knightley. "That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast." If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I should like it of all things," was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation: but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment as she chose to consider it. "You may depend upon me," said she. "I certainly will come. Name your day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring | she and Mr. Weston had agreed to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the Eltons and the Sucklings. This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs. Elton's party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper. "I am glad you approve of what I have done," said he very comfortably. "But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not leave her out." Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private. It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston." "You had better explore to Donwell," replied Mr. Knightley. "That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast." If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I should like it of all things," was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation: but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment as she chose to consider it. "You may depend upon me," said she. "I certainly will come. Name your day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?" "I cannot name a day," said he, "till I have spoken to some others whom I would wish to meet you." "Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me." "I hope you will bring Elton," said he: "but I will not trouble you to give any other invitations." "Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consider--you need not be afraid of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her preferment. Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave it all to me. I will invite your guests." "No," "--he calmly replied,--" "there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and that one is--" "--Mrs. Weston, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified. "No--Mrs. Knightley;--and till she is in being, I will manage such matters myself." "Ah! you are an odd creature!" she cried, satisfied to have no one preferred to herself.--" "You are a humourist, and may say what you like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall | That is, I _presume_ it to be so on her side, and I can _answer_ for its being so on his. I will answer for the gentleman's indifference." She spoke with a confidence which staggered, with a satisfaction which silenced, Mr. Knightley. She was in gay spirits, and would have prolonged the conversation, wanting to hear the particulars of his suspicions, every look described, and all the wheres and hows of a circumstance which highly entertained her: but his gaiety did not meet hers. He found he could not be useful, and his feelings were too much irritated for talking. That he might not be irritated into an absolute fever, by the fire which Mr. Woodhouse's tender habits required almost every evening throughout the year, he soon afterwards took a hasty leave, and walked home to the coolness and solitude of Donwell Abbey. CHAPTER VI After being long fed with hopes of a speedy visit from Mr. and Mrs. Suckling, the Highbury world were obliged to endure the mortification of hearing that they could not possibly come till the autumn. No such importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at present. In the daily interchange of news, they must be again restricted to the other topics with which for a while the Sucklings' coming had been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs. Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was by the approach of it. Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought at first;--but a little consideration convinced her that every thing need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was to be such a party had been long generally known: it had even given the idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the Eltons and the Sucklings. This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs. Elton's party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper. "I am glad you approve of what I have done," said he very comfortably. "But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not leave her out." Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private. It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston." "You had better explore to Donwell," replied Mr. Knightley. "That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast." If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I should like it of all things," was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation: but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment as she chose to consider it. "You may depend upon me," said she. "I certainly will come. Name your day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?" "I cannot name a day," said he, "till I have spoken to some others whom I would wish to meet you." "Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me." "I hope you will bring Elton," said he: "but I will not trouble you to give any other invitations." "Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consider--you need not be afraid of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her preferment. Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave it all to me. I will invite your guests." "No," "--he calmly replied,--" "there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and that one is--" "--Mrs. Weston, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified. "No--Mrs. Knightley;--and till she is in being, I will manage such matters myself." "Ah! you are an odd creature!" she cried, satisfied to have no one preferred to herself.--" "You are a humourist, and may say what you like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and her aunt.--The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting the Hartfield family. Don't scruple. I know you are attached to them." "You certainly will meet them if I can prevail; and I shall call on Miss Bates in my way home." "That's quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day:--but as you like. It is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a simple thing. I shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under trees;--and whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out of doors--a table spread in the shade, you know. Every thing as natural and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?" "Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have the table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house." "Well--as you please; only don't have a great set out. And, by the bye, can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?--Pray be sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs. Hodges, or to inspect anything--" "I have not the least wish for it, I thank you." "Well--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely clever." "I will answer for it, that mine thinks herself full as clever, and would spurn any body's assistance." "I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me--and my caro sposo walking by. I really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at home;--and very long walks, you know--in summer there | which for a while the Sucklings' coming had been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs. Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was by the approach of it. Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought at first;--but a little consideration convinced her that every thing need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was to be such a party had been long generally known: it had even given the idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the Eltons and the Sucklings. This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs. Elton's party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper. "I am glad you approve of what I have done," said he very comfortably. "But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not leave her out." Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private. It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were inadequate to such an attack.<|quote|>"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?"</|quote|>she cried.--" "And such weather for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston." "You had better explore to Donwell," replied Mr. Knightley. "That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast." If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I should like it of all things," was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation: but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment as she chose to consider it. "You may depend upon me," said she. "I certainly will come. Name your day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?" "I cannot name a day," said he, "till I have spoken to some others whom I would wish to meet you." "Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me." "I hope you will bring Elton," said he: "but I will not trouble you to give any other invitations." "Oh! | Emma |
"I don't know so much about that," | Jem Wimble | to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be | shall soon have a chief to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be ready enough to come ashore, | and I never sent one away." "Then how should I be able to send to my Sally." "Dunno," said the man. "There, you think it over. Ngati here will be ready to take care of you, youngster; and matey here shall soon have a chief to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be ready enough to come ashore, but you've got some precious unpleasant ways out here as wouldn't suit me." "You'd soon get used to them," said the Englishman, drily; "and after leading a rough life, and being bullied by everybody, it isn't half bad to be | do worse. You'd be all right with us; and there are Englishmen here and there beginning to settle." "And how often is there a post goes out for England?" "Post? For England? Letters?" "Yes." "I don't know; I've been here a long time now, and I never had a letter and I never sent one away." "Then how should I be able to send to my Sally." "Dunno," said the man. "There, you think it over. Ngati here will be ready to take care of you, youngster; and matey here shall soon have a chief to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be ready enough to come ashore, but you've got some precious unpleasant ways out here as wouldn't suit me." "You'd soon get used to them," said the Englishman, drily; "and after leading a rough life, and being bullied by everybody, it isn't half bad to be a chief, and have a big canoe of your own, and make people do as you like." "But then you're a great powerful man," said Don. "They'd obey you, but they wouldn't obey me." "Oh, yes, they would, if you went the right way to work. It isn't only being | come ashore." "To be cooked?" said Jem. "Bah! Stuff! They'd treat you well. Youngster here's all right; Ngati would make him his pakeha." "My pakeha," cried the chief, patting Don again. "Much powder; much gun." "Pupil of mine," said the Englishman, smiling; "I taught him our lingo." "What does he mean?" said Don; "that he'd give me a big gun and plenty of powder?" The Englishman laughed. "No, no; he wants you to bring plenty of guns and powder ashore with you when you come." "When I come!" said Don, thoughtfully. "I sha'n't persuade you, my lad; but you might do worse. You'd be all right with us; and there are Englishmen here and there beginning to settle." "And how often is there a post goes out for England?" "Post? For England? Letters?" "Yes." "I don't know; I've been here a long time now, and I never had a letter and I never sent one away." "Then how should I be able to send to my Sally." "Dunno," said the man. "There, you think it over. Ngati here will be ready to take care of you, youngster; and matey here shall soon have a chief to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be ready enough to come ashore, but you've got some precious unpleasant ways out here as wouldn't suit me." "You'd soon get used to them," said the Englishman, drily; "and after leading a rough life, and being bullied by everybody, it isn't half bad to be a chief, and have a big canoe of your own, and make people do as you like." "But then you're a great powerful man," said Don. "They'd obey you, but they wouldn't obey me." "Oh, yes, they would, if you went the right way to work. It isn't only being big. They're big, much bigger all round than Englishmen, and stronger and more active. They're not afraid of your body, but of your mind; that's what they can't understand. If I was to write down something on a bit of wood or a leaf--we don't often see paper here--and give it to you to read, and you did the same to me, that gets over them: it's a wonder they can't understand. And lots of other things we know are puzzles to them, and so they think us big. You consider it over a bit, my lad; and if you | by that?" said Don, after he had suffered these attentions patiently for a few minutes. "Means he wants you to be his pakeha." "Yes: my pakeha; Maori pakeha!" cried the chief eagerly. "But what is a pakeha?" "Why, you're a pakeha, I'm a pakeha. They call foreigners pakehas; and he wants to claim you as his." "What, his slave?" cried Don. "No, no; he means his foreign brother. If you become his pakeha, he will be bound to fight for you. Eh, Ngati?" The savage gave vent to a fierce shout, and went through his former performance, but with more flourish, as if he were slaying numbers of enemies, and his facial distortion was hideous. "Well, when I was a little un, and went to school," said Jem, "I used to get spanks if I put out my tongue. Seems as if it's a fine thing to do out here." "Yes; it's a way they have when they're going to fight," said the Englishman thoughtfully. "S'pose it would mean trouble if I were to set you on to do it; but it wouldn't be at all bad for me if you were both of you to leave the ship and come ashore." "To be cooked?" said Jem. "Bah! Stuff! They'd treat you well. Youngster here's all right; Ngati would make him his pakeha." "My pakeha," cried the chief, patting Don again. "Much powder; much gun." "Pupil of mine," said the Englishman, smiling; "I taught him our lingo." "What does he mean?" said Don; "that he'd give me a big gun and plenty of powder?" The Englishman laughed. "No, no; he wants you to bring plenty of guns and powder ashore with you when you come." "When I come!" said Don, thoughtfully. "I sha'n't persuade you, my lad; but you might do worse. You'd be all right with us; and there are Englishmen here and there beginning to settle." "And how often is there a post goes out for England?" "Post? For England? Letters?" "Yes." "I don't know; I've been here a long time now, and I never had a letter and I never sent one away." "Then how should I be able to send to my Sally." "Dunno," said the man. "There, you think it over. Ngati here will be ready to take care of you, youngster; and matey here shall soon have a chief to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be ready enough to come ashore, but you've got some precious unpleasant ways out here as wouldn't suit me." "You'd soon get used to them," said the Englishman, drily; "and after leading a rough life, and being bullied by everybody, it isn't half bad to be a chief, and have a big canoe of your own, and make people do as you like." "But then you're a great powerful man," said Don. "They'd obey you, but they wouldn't obey me." "Oh, yes, they would, if you went the right way to work. It isn't only being big. They're big, much bigger all round than Englishmen, and stronger and more active. They're not afraid of your body, but of your mind; that's what they can't understand. If I was to write down something on a bit of wood or a leaf--we don't often see paper here--and give it to you to read, and you did the same to me, that gets over them: it's a wonder they can't understand. And lots of other things we know are puzzles to them, and so they think us big. You consider it over a bit, my lad; and if you decide to run for it, I'll see as you don't come to no harm." "And him too?" "Oh, yes; he shall be all right too; I'll see to that." "Shouldn't be too tempting for 'em, eh? Should I?" said Jem. "Not for our tribes here," said the Englishman, laughing; "but I may as well be plain with you. If we went to war with some of the others, and they got hold of you--" "Say, Mas' Don," said Jem interrupting the speaker, "I don't like being a sort of white nigger aboard ship, and being kept a prisoner, and told it's to serve the king; but a man can go into the galley to speak to the cook without feeling that he's wondering which jynte of you he shall use first. No thankye; it's a werry lovely country, but I want to get home to my Sally some day; and if we cut and run here, I'm afraid I never should." "You turn it over in your own minds, both of you, my lads. There, my pipe's out, and I think we'll go. Stop here long?" "Do you mean the ship, or here with the boat?" "Here with the boat," | it," said Jem. "Well, you can do as you like," said the man; "but I know what I should do if they'd served me so." "Cutoff?" said Jem. "That's it, mate. I wouldn't ha' minded being a sailor, but not be made one whether I liked or no." "You weren't a sailor, were you?" said Don. "I? No; never mind what I was." "Then we had better cut off, Mas' Don," said Jem, grinning till his eyes were shut; "and you and me 'll be painted like he is in fast colours, and you shall be a chief, and I'll be your head man." "To be sure," said the Englishman; "and you shall have a wife." "Eh?" cried Jem fiercely; "that I just won't. And, Mas' Don, if we ever do get back, don't you never say a word to my Sally about this here." "No, Jem, not I." "But you'll leave the ship, mate?" "Well, I dunno," said Jem, thoughtfully. "Will that there pattern all over your face and chest wash off?" "Wash off? No." "Not with pearl-ash or soda?" "No, not unless you skinned me," said the man, laughing. "Well, that part arn't tempting, is it, Mas' Don?" Don shook his head. "And then about that other part, old chap--cannibalism? I say, that's gammon, isn't it?" "What do you mean?" "Why, you know--the cooking a fellow and eating him. How dull you are!" "Dull? You be here a few years among these people, talking their lingo, and not seeing an Englishman above once in two years, and see if you wouldn't be dull." "But is that true?" "About being cannibals? Yes it's true enough," said the man seriously; "and very horrid it is; but it's only when there's war." He had succeeded in striking a light now, and was smoking placidly enough on the boat's edge, but dreamily thoughtful, as if he were recalling matters that were past. "Has he ever--been at war?" said Don, altering the fashion of his inquiry when it was half uttered. "Often." "And--? You know," said Jem, who felt no delicacy about the matter. The Englishman nodded his head slowly, and sent forth a tremendous puff of smoke, while his companion moved toward Don, and smiled at him, tapping him on the shoulder with his hand, and seeming to nod approval. "Pakeha!" he said, excitedly; "my pakeha; Maori pakeha." "What does he mean by that?" said Don, after he had suffered these attentions patiently for a few minutes. "Means he wants you to be his pakeha." "Yes: my pakeha; Maori pakeha!" cried the chief eagerly. "But what is a pakeha?" "Why, you're a pakeha, I'm a pakeha. They call foreigners pakehas; and he wants to claim you as his." "What, his slave?" cried Don. "No, no; he means his foreign brother. If you become his pakeha, he will be bound to fight for you. Eh, Ngati?" The savage gave vent to a fierce shout, and went through his former performance, but with more flourish, as if he were slaying numbers of enemies, and his facial distortion was hideous. "Well, when I was a little un, and went to school," said Jem, "I used to get spanks if I put out my tongue. Seems as if it's a fine thing to do out here." "Yes; it's a way they have when they're going to fight," said the Englishman thoughtfully. "S'pose it would mean trouble if I were to set you on to do it; but it wouldn't be at all bad for me if you were both of you to leave the ship and come ashore." "To be cooked?" said Jem. "Bah! Stuff! They'd treat you well. Youngster here's all right; Ngati would make him his pakeha." "My pakeha," cried the chief, patting Don again. "Much powder; much gun." "Pupil of mine," said the Englishman, smiling; "I taught him our lingo." "What does he mean?" said Don; "that he'd give me a big gun and plenty of powder?" The Englishman laughed. "No, no; he wants you to bring plenty of guns and powder ashore with you when you come." "When I come!" said Don, thoughtfully. "I sha'n't persuade you, my lad; but you might do worse. You'd be all right with us; and there are Englishmen here and there beginning to settle." "And how often is there a post goes out for England?" "Post? For England? Letters?" "Yes." "I don't know; I've been here a long time now, and I never had a letter and I never sent one away." "Then how should I be able to send to my Sally." "Dunno," said the man. "There, you think it over. Ngati here will be ready to take care of you, youngster; and matey here shall soon have a chief to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be ready enough to come ashore, but you've got some precious unpleasant ways out here as wouldn't suit me." "You'd soon get used to them," said the Englishman, drily; "and after leading a rough life, and being bullied by everybody, it isn't half bad to be a chief, and have a big canoe of your own, and make people do as you like." "But then you're a great powerful man," said Don. "They'd obey you, but they wouldn't obey me." "Oh, yes, they would, if you went the right way to work. It isn't only being big. They're big, much bigger all round than Englishmen, and stronger and more active. They're not afraid of your body, but of your mind; that's what they can't understand. If I was to write down something on a bit of wood or a leaf--we don't often see paper here--and give it to you to read, and you did the same to me, that gets over them: it's a wonder they can't understand. And lots of other things we know are puzzles to them, and so they think us big. You consider it over a bit, my lad; and if you decide to run for it, I'll see as you don't come to no harm." "And him too?" "Oh, yes; he shall be all right too; I'll see to that." "Shouldn't be too tempting for 'em, eh? Should I?" said Jem. "Not for our tribes here," said the Englishman, laughing; "but I may as well be plain with you. If we went to war with some of the others, and they got hold of you--" "Say, Mas' Don," said Jem interrupting the speaker, "I don't like being a sort of white nigger aboard ship, and being kept a prisoner, and told it's to serve the king; but a man can go into the galley to speak to the cook without feeling that he's wondering which jynte of you he shall use first. No thankye; it's a werry lovely country, but I want to get home to my Sally some day; and if we cut and run here, I'm afraid I never should." "You turn it over in your own minds, both of you, my lads. There, my pipe's out, and I think we'll go. Stop here long?" "Do you mean the ship, or here with the boat?" "Here with the boat," said the Englishman, holding out his hand. "Till our party comes back," said Jem. "I may see you again," said the Englishman; and shaking hands, he said a few words to his companion, and then began to wade ashore. The savage smiled and shook hands in turn, after which he patted Don on the shoulder again. "My pakeha," he said, sharply; "Maori pakeha--my." He followed his leader; and Don and Jem watched them till they disappeared amongst the abundant growth. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. DON'S DECISION. "It's tempting, Jem," said Don. "Yes, Mas' Don; and it's untempting, too. I had a book once about manners and customs of foreign parts, but it didn't say things so plain as you've found 'em here." "Yes, I'm afraid it won't do, Jem. Even if we got away from the ship, it might be to a life that would be worse." "That's it, sir, as I said afore, `out of the frying-pan into the fire.' Wonder how long they'll be 'fore they come back." "Not till sundown. I say, shall we try it or sha'n't we?" Jem scratched his head, and seemed to be hesitating. "I don't know what to say, Jem. If they treated us well on board, I should be disposed to say let's put up with our life till we get back home." "But then they don't treat us well, Mas' Don. I don't grumble to you, but it's a reg'lar dog's life I lead; bully and cuss and swear at you, and then not even well fed." "But we are to be paid for it, Jem," said Don, bitterly. "Paid, Mas' Don!" replied Jem, contemptuously. "What paying will make up for what we go through?" "And I suppose we should have prize-money if we fought and took a French ship." "But then we're sent right out here, Mas' Don, where there's no French ships to fight; and if there were, the prize-money is shared among them as aren't killed." "Of course." "Well, how do we know as we shouldn't be killed? No, Mas' Don, they don't behave well to us, and I want to get home again, and so do you." "Yes, Jem." "P'r'aps it's cowardly, and they'll call it desertion." "Yes, Jem." "But we sha'n't be there to hear 'em call it so." "No, Jem." "Therefore it don't matter, Mas' Don; I've thought this all over hundreds o' times when | mean trouble if I were to set you on to do it; but it wouldn't be at all bad for me if you were both of you to leave the ship and come ashore." "To be cooked?" said Jem. "Bah! Stuff! They'd treat you well. Youngster here's all right; Ngati would make him his pakeha." "My pakeha," cried the chief, patting Don again. "Much powder; much gun." "Pupil of mine," said the Englishman, smiling; "I taught him our lingo." "What does he mean?" said Don; "that he'd give me a big gun and plenty of powder?" The Englishman laughed. "No, no; he wants you to bring plenty of guns and powder ashore with you when you come." "When I come!" said Don, thoughtfully. "I sha'n't persuade you, my lad; but you might do worse. You'd be all right with us; and there are Englishmen here and there beginning to settle." "And how often is there a post goes out for England?" "Post? For England? Letters?" "Yes." "I don't know; I've been here a long time now, and I never had a letter and I never sent one away." "Then how should I be able to send to my Sally." "Dunno," said the man. "There, you think it over. Ngati here will be ready to take care of you, youngster; and matey here shall soon have a chief to take care of him."<|quote|>"I don't know so much about that,"</|quote|>said Jem. "I should be ready enough to come ashore, but you've got some precious unpleasant ways out here as wouldn't suit me." "You'd soon get used to them," said the Englishman, drily; "and after leading a rough life, and being bullied by everybody, it isn't half bad to be a chief, and have a big canoe of your own, and make people do as you like." "But then you're a great powerful man," said Don. "They'd obey you, but they wouldn't obey me." "Oh, yes, they would, if you went the right way to work. It isn't only being big. They're big, much bigger all round than Englishmen, and stronger and more active. They're not afraid of your body, but of your mind; that's what they can't understand. If I was to write down something on a bit of wood or a leaf--we don't often see paper here--and give it to you to read, and you did the same to me, that gets over them: it's a wonder they can't understand. And lots of other things we know are puzzles to them, and so they think us big. You consider it over a bit, my lad; and if you decide to run for it, I'll see as you don't come to no harm." "And him too?" "Oh, yes; he shall be all right too; I'll see to that." "Shouldn't be too tempting for 'em, eh? Should I?" said Jem. "Not for our tribes here," said the Englishman, laughing; "but I may as well be plain with you. If we went to war with some of the others, and they got hold of you--" "Say, Mas' Don," said Jem interrupting the speaker, "I don't like being a sort of white nigger aboard ship, and being kept a prisoner, and told it's to serve the king; but a man can go into the galley to speak to the cook without feeling that he's wondering which jynte of you he shall use first. No thankye; it's a werry lovely country, but I want to get home to my Sally some day; and if we cut and run here, I'm afraid I never should." "You turn it over in your own minds, both of you, my lads. There, my pipe's out, and I think we'll go. Stop here long?" "Do you mean the ship, or here with the boat?" "Here with the boat," said the Englishman, holding out his hand. "Till our party comes back," said Jem. "I may see you again," said the Englishman; and shaking hands, he said a few words to his companion, and then began to wade ashore. The savage smiled and shook hands in turn, after which he patted Don on the shoulder again. "My pakeha," he said, | Don Lavington |
said Matthew. | No speaker | so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we | and I did tell her so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we can do for her some | kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so." "Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by and by." "There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a | twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed. "Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew proudly. "Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so." "Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by and by." "There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look so tall. She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said about that | I do think it's awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast pocket. There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure you ought to be pleased at that." "It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I simply never waste a thought on him, Diana." That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed. "Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew proudly. "Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so." "Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by and by." "There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look so tall. She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet." "Well now, it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on," said Matthew. "Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over." CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed |JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not | honored.'" "Well, your recitations just brought down the house, Anne. That sad one was simply splendid." "Oh, I was so nervous, Diana. When Mr. Allan called out my name I really cannot tell how I ever got up on that platform. I felt as if a million eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful moment I was sure I couldn't begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely puffed sleeves and took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, Diana. So I started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so far away. I just felt like a parrot. It's providential that I practiced those recitations so often up in the garret, or I'd never have been able to get through. Did I groan all right?" "Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely," assured Diana. "I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was splendid to think I had touched somebody's heart. It's so romantic to take part in a concert, isn't it? Oh, it's been a very memorable occasion indeed." "Wasn't the boys' dialogue fine?" said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe was just splendid. Anne, I do think it's awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast pocket. There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure you ought to be pleased at that." "It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I simply never waste a thought on him, Diana." That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed. "Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew proudly. "Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so." "Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by and by." "There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look so tall. She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet." "Well now, it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on," said Matthew. "Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over." CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed |JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really think she could. "I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same again as it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if referring to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a while I'll get used to it, but I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them. Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because I'm tired. I simply couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That's one splendid thing about such affairs--it's so lovely to look back to them." Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby Gillis and | gay little figure in her crimson ulster. Anne flew down the slope to meet her. "Merry Christmas, Diana! And oh, it's a wonderful Christmas. I've something splendid to show you. Matthew has given me the loveliest dress, with _such_ sleeves. I couldn't even imagine any nicer." "I've got something more for you," said Diana breathlessly. "Here--this box. Aunt Josephine sent us out a big box with ever so many things in it--and this is for you. I'd have brought it over last night, but it didn't come until after dark, and I never feel very comfortable coming through the Haunted Wood in the dark now." Anne opened the box and peeped in. First a card with "For the Anne-girl and Merry Christmas," written on it; and then, a pair of the daintiest little kid slippers, with beaded toes and satin bows and glistening buckles. "Oh," said Anne, "Diana, this is too much. I must be dreaming." "I call it providential," said Diana. "You won't have to borrow Ruby's slippers now, and that's a blessing, for they're two sizes too big for you, and it would be awful to hear a fairy shuffling. Josie Pye would be delighted. Mind you, Rob Wright went home with Gertie Pye from the practice night before last. Did you ever hear anything equal to that?" All the Avonlea scholars were in a fever of excitement that day, for the hall had to be decorated and a last grand rehearsal held. The concert came off in the evening and was a pronounced success. The little hall was crowded; all the performers did excellently well, but Anne was the bright particular star of the occasion, as even envy, in the shape of Josie Pye, dared not deny. "Oh, hasn't it been a brilliant evening?" sighed Anne, when it was all over and she and Diana were walking home together under a dark, starry sky. "Everything went off very well," said Diana practically. "I guess we must have made as much as ten dollars. Mind you, Mr. Allan is going to send an account of it to the Charlottetown papers." "Oh, Diana, will we really see our names in print? It makes me thrill to think of it. Your solo was perfectly elegant, Diana. I felt prouder than you did when it was encored. I just said to myself," ?It is my dear bosom friend who is so honored.'" "Well, your recitations just brought down the house, Anne. That sad one was simply splendid." "Oh, I was so nervous, Diana. When Mr. Allan called out my name I really cannot tell how I ever got up on that platform. I felt as if a million eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful moment I was sure I couldn't begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely puffed sleeves and took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, Diana. So I started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so far away. I just felt like a parrot. It's providential that I practiced those recitations so often up in the garret, or I'd never have been able to get through. Did I groan all right?" "Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely," assured Diana. "I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was splendid to think I had touched somebody's heart. It's so romantic to take part in a concert, isn't it? Oh, it's been a very memorable occasion indeed." "Wasn't the boys' dialogue fine?" said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe was just splendid. Anne, I do think it's awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast pocket. There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure you ought to be pleased at that." "It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I simply never waste a thought on him, Diana." That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed. "Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew proudly. "Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so." "Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by and by." "There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look so tall. She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet." "Well now, it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on," said Matthew. "Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over." CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed |JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really think she could. "I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same again as it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if referring to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a while I'll get used to it, but I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them. Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because I'm tired. I simply couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That's one splendid thing about such affairs--it's so lovely to look back to them." Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did not "speak" for three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright that Julia Bell's bow when she got up to recite made her think of a chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes would have any dealings with the Bells, because the Bells had declared that the Sloanes had too much to do in the program, and the Sloanes had retorted that the Bells were not capable of doing the little they had to do properly. Finally, Charlie Sloane fought Moody Spurgeon MacPherson, because Moody Spurgeon had said that Anne Shirley put on airs about her recitations, and Moody Spurgeon was "licked"; consequently Moody Spurgeon's sister, Ella May, would not "speak" to Anne Shirley all the rest of the winter. With the exception of these trifling frictions, work in Miss Stacy's little kingdom went on with regularity and smoothness. The winter weeks slipped by. It was an unusually mild winter, with so little snow that Anne and Diana could go to school nearly every day by way of the Birch Path. On Anne's birthday they were tripping lightly down it, keeping eyes and ears alert amid all their chatter, for Miss Stacy had told them that they must soon write a composition on "A Winter's Walk in the Woods," and it behooved them to be observant. "Just think, Diana, I'm thirteen years old today," remarked Anne in an awed voice. "I can scarcely realize that I'm in my teens. When I woke this morning it seemed to me that everything must be different. You've been thirteen for a month, so I suppose it doesn't seem such a novelty to you as it does to me. It makes life seem so much more interesting. In two more years I'll be really grown up. It's a great comfort to think that I'll be able to use big words then without being laughed at." "Ruby Gillis says she means to have a beau as soon as she's fifteen," said Diana. "Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaus," said Anne disdainfully. "She's actually delighted when anyone writes her name up in a take-notice for all she pretends to be so mad. | up in the garret, or I'd never have been able to get through. Did I groan all right?" "Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely," assured Diana. "I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was splendid to think I had touched somebody's heart. It's so romantic to take part in a concert, isn't it? Oh, it's been a very memorable occasion indeed." "Wasn't the boys' dialogue fine?" said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe was just splendid. Anne, I do think it's awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast pocket. There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure you ought to be pleased at that." "It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I simply never waste a thought on him, Diana." That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed. "Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew proudly. "Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of Anne tonight, although I'm not going to tell her so." "Well now, I was proud of her and I did tell her so ?fore she went upstairs,"<|quote|>said Matthew.</|quote|>"We must see what we can do for her some of these days, Marilla. I guess she'll need something more than Avonlea school by and by." "There's time enough to think of that," said Marilla. "She's only thirteen in March. Though tonight it struck me she was growing quite a big girl. Mrs. Lynde made that dress a mite too long, and it makes Anne look so tall. She's quick to learn and I guess the best thing we can do for her will be to send her to Queen's after a spell. But nothing need be said about that for a year or two yet." "Well now, it'll do no harm to be thinking it over off and on," said Matthew. "Things like that are all the better for lots of thinking over." CHAPTER XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed |JUNIOR Avonlea found it hard to settle down to humdrum existence again. To Anne in particular things seemed fearfully flat, stale, and unprofitable after the goblet of excitement she had been sipping for weeks. Could she go back to the former quiet pleasures of those faraway days before the concert? At first, as she told Diana, she did not really think she could. "I'm positively certain, Diana, that life can never be quite the same again as it was in those olden days," she said mournfully, as if referring to a period of at least fifty years back. "Perhaps after a while I'll get used to it, but I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life. I suppose that is why Marilla disapproves of them. Marilla is such a sensible woman. It must be a great deal better to be sensible; but still, I don't believe I'd really want to be a sensible person, because they are so unromantic. Mrs. Lynde says there is no danger of my ever being one, but you can never tell. I feel just now that I may grow up to be sensible yet. But perhaps that is only because I'm tired. I simply couldn't sleep last night for ever so long. I just lay awake and imagined the concert over and over again. That's one splendid thing about such affairs--it's so lovely to look back to them." Eventually, however, Avonlea school slipped back into its old groove and took up its old interests. To be sure, the concert left traces. Ruby Gillis and Emma White, who had quarreled over a point of precedence in their platform seats, no longer sat at the same desk, and a promising friendship of three years was broken up. Josie Pye and Julia Bell did not "speak" for three months, because Josie Pye had told Bessie Wright that Julia Bell's bow when she got up to recite made her think of a chicken jerking its head, and Bessie told Julia. None of the Sloanes would have any dealings with the | Anne Of Green Gables |
"Stephen?" | Rachel Gradgrind | she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his | me alone wi' her!" As she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his knee before her, on the | and rain. "Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?" "No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home." "Thou'rt not fearfo';" he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the door; "to leave me alone wi' her!" As she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. "Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!" "I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and | bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it." As she spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth. She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before going out into the wind and rain. "Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?" "No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home." "Thou'rt not fearfo';" he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the door; "to leave me alone wi' her!" As she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. "Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!" "I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and a working woman fu' of faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed." She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. "Thou changest | Stephen looked at her, saw how pale she was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand even now. "I thought it must be near three," she said, calmly pouring from the cup into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. "I am thankful I stayed! 'Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! And now she's quiet again. The few drops in the basin I'll pour away, for 'tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it." As she spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth. She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before going out into the wind and rain. "Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?" "No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home." "Thou'rt not fearfo';" he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the door; "to leave me alone wi' her!" As she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. "Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!" "I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and a working woman fu' of faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed." She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. "Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak'st me humbly wishfo' to be more like thee, and fearfo' to lose thee when this life is ower, and a' the muddle cleared awa'. Thou'rt an Angel; it may be, thou hast saved my soul alive!" She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in his hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the working of his face. "I coom home desp'rate. I coom home wi'out a hope, and mad wi' thinking that when I said a word o' complaint I was | hand. She drew a mug into the bed, and sat for a while considering which of the two bottles she should choose. Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth. Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If this be real, and her allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael, wake! She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly, very cautiously, poured out the contents. The draught was at her lips. A moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world wake and come about her with its utmost power. But in that moment Rachael started up with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled, struck her, seized her by the hair; but Rachael had the cup. Stephen broke out of his chair. "Rachael, am I wakin' or dreamin' this dreadfo' night?" "'Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. 'Tis near three. Hush! I hear the bells." The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window. They listened, and it struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw how pale she was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand even now. "I thought it must be near three," she said, calmly pouring from the cup into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. "I am thankful I stayed! 'Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! And now she's quiet again. The few drops in the basin I'll pour away, for 'tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it." As she spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth. She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before going out into the wind and rain. "Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?" "No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home." "Thou'rt not fearfo';" he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the door; "to leave me alone wi' her!" As she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. "Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!" "I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and a working woman fu' of faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed." She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. "Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak'st me humbly wishfo' to be more like thee, and fearfo' to lose thee when this life is ower, and a' the muddle cleared awa'. Thou'rt an Angel; it may be, thou hast saved my soul alive!" She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in his hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the working of his face. "I coom home desp'rate. I coom home wi'out a hope, and mad wi' thinking that when I said a word o' complaint I was reckoned a unreasonable Hand. I told thee I had had a fright. It were the Poison-bottle on table. I never hurt a livin' creetur; but happenin' so suddenly upon 't, I thowt, "How can _I_ say what I might ha' done to myseln, or her, or both!"" She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop him from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand, and holding them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said hurriedly: "But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha' seen thee, aw this night. In my troublous sleep I ha' known thee still to be there. Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her or think o' her, but thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will see or think o' anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than me, shalt be by th' side on't. And so I will try t' look t' th' time, and so I will try t' trust t' th' time, when thou and me at last shall walk together far awa', beyond the deep gulf, in th' country where thy little | and got them out into the streets, the very chimneys of the mills assumed that shape, and round them was the printed word. The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on the house-tops, and the larger spaces through which he had strayed contracted to the four walls of his room. Saving that the fire had died out, it was as his eyes had closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have fallen into a doze, in the chair by the bed. She sat wrapped in her shawl, perfectly still. The table stood in the same place, close by the bedside, and on it, in its real proportions and appearance, was the shape so often repeated. He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked again, and he was sure it moved. He saw a hand come forth and grope about a little. Then the curtain moved more perceptibly, and the woman in the bed put it back, and sat up. With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy and large, she looked all round the room, and passed the corner where he slept in his chair. Her eyes returned to that corner, and she put her hand over them as a shade, while she looked into it. Again they went all round the room, scarcely heeding Rachael if at all, and returned to that corner. He thought, as she once more shaded them not so much looking at him, as looking for him with a brutish instinct that he was there that no single trace was left in those debauched features, or in the mind that went along with them, of the woman he had married eighteen years before. But that he had seen her come to this by inches, he never could have believed her to be the same. All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motionless and powerless, except to watch her. Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands at her ears, and her head resting on them. Presently, she resumed her staring round the room. And now, for the first time, her eyes stopped at the table with the bottles on it. Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, with the defiance of last night, and moving very cautiously and softly, stretched out her greedy hand. She drew a mug into the bed, and sat for a while considering which of the two bottles she should choose. Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth. Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If this be real, and her allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael, wake! She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly, very cautiously, poured out the contents. The draught was at her lips. A moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world wake and come about her with its utmost power. But in that moment Rachael started up with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled, struck her, seized her by the hair; but Rachael had the cup. Stephen broke out of his chair. "Rachael, am I wakin' or dreamin' this dreadfo' night?" "'Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. 'Tis near three. Hush! I hear the bells." The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window. They listened, and it struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw how pale she was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand even now. "I thought it must be near three," she said, calmly pouring from the cup into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. "I am thankful I stayed! 'Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! And now she's quiet again. The few drops in the basin I'll pour away, for 'tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it." As she spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth. She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before going out into the wind and rain. "Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?" "No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home." "Thou'rt not fearfo';" he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the door; "to leave me alone wi' her!" As she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. "Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!" "I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and a working woman fu' of faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed." She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. "Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak'st me humbly wishfo' to be more like thee, and fearfo' to lose thee when this life is ower, and a' the muddle cleared awa'. Thou'rt an Angel; it may be, thou hast saved my soul alive!" She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in his hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the working of his face. "I coom home desp'rate. I coom home wi'out a hope, and mad wi' thinking that when I said a word o' complaint I was reckoned a unreasonable Hand. I told thee I had had a fright. It were the Poison-bottle on table. I never hurt a livin' creetur; but happenin' so suddenly upon 't, I thowt, "How can _I_ say what I might ha' done to myseln, or her, or both!"" She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop him from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand, and holding them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said hurriedly: "But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha' seen thee, aw this night. In my troublous sleep I ha' known thee still to be there. Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her or think o' her, but thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will see or think o' anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than me, shalt be by th' side on't. And so I will try t' look t' th' time, and so I will try t' trust t' th' time, when thou and me at last shall walk together far awa', beyond the deep gulf, in th' country where thy little sister is." He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her go. She bade him good night in a broken voice, and went out into the street. The wind blew from the quarter where the day would soon appear, and still blew strongly. It had cleared the sky before it, and the rain had spent itself or travelled elsewhere, and the stars were bright. He stood bare-headed in the road, watching her quick disappearance. As the shining stars were to the heavy candle in the window, so was Rachael, in the rugged fancy of this man, to the common experiences of his life. CHAPTER XIV THE GREAT MANUFACTURER TIME went on in Coketown like its own machinery: so much material wrought up, so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn out, so much money made. But, less inexorable than iron, steel, and brass, it brought its varying seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and brick, and made the only stand that ever _was_ made in the place against its direful uniformity. "Louisa is becoming," said Mr. Gradgrind, "almost a young woman." Time, with his innumerable horse-power, worked away, not minding what anybody said, and presently turned out young Thomas a foot taller than when his father had last taken particular notice of him. "Thomas is becoming," said Mr. Gradgrind, "almost a young man." Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father was thinking about it, and there he stood in a long-tailed coat and a stiff shirt-collar. "Really," said Mr. Gradgrind, "the period has arrived when Thomas ought to go to Bounderby." Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby's Bank, made him an inmate of Bounderby's house, necessitated the purchase of his first razor, and exercised him diligently in his calculations relative to number one. The same great manufacturer, always with an immense variety of work on hand, in every stage of development, passed Sissy onward in his mill, and worked her up into a very pretty article indeed. "I fear, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind, "that your continuance at the school any longer would be useless." "I am afraid it would, sir," Sissy answered with a curtsey. "I cannot disguise from you, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind, knitting his brow, "that the result of your probation there has disappointed me; has greatly disappointed me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild, anything | or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If this be real, and her allotted time be not yet come, wake, Rachael, wake! She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly, very cautiously, poured out the contents. The draught was at her lips. A moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world wake and come about her with its utmost power. But in that moment Rachael started up with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled, struck her, seized her by the hair; but Rachael had the cup. Stephen broke out of his chair. "Rachael, am I wakin' or dreamin' this dreadfo' night?" "'Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. 'Tis near three. Hush! I hear the bells." The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window. They listened, and it struck three. Stephen looked at her, saw how pale she was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand even now. "I thought it must be near three," she said, calmly pouring from the cup into the basin, and steeping the linen as before. "I am thankful I stayed! 'Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! And now she's quiet again. The few drops in the basin I'll pour away, for 'tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it." As she spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth. She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before going out into the wind and rain. "Thou'lt let me walk wi' thee at this hour, Rachael?" "No, Stephen. 'Tis but a minute, and I'm home." "Thou'rt not fearfo';" he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the door; "to leave me alone wi' her!" As she looked at him, saying,<|quote|>"Stephen?"</|quote|>he went down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips. "Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee!" "I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and a working woman fu' of faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed." She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they fell again, in all their gentleness and mildness, on his face. "Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak'st me humbly wishfo' to be more like thee, and fearfo' to lose thee when this life is ower, and a' the muddle cleared awa'. Thou'rt an Angel; it may be, thou hast saved my soul alive!" She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in his hand, and the reproof on her lips died away when she saw the working of his face. "I coom home desp'rate. I coom home wi'out a hope, and mad wi' thinking that when I said a word o' complaint I was reckoned a unreasonable Hand. I told thee I had had a fright. It were the Poison-bottle on table. I never hurt a livin' creetur; but happenin' so suddenly upon 't, I thowt, "How can _I_ say what I might ha' done to myseln, or her, or both!"" She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop him from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand, and holding them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said hurriedly: "But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha' seen thee, aw this night. In my troublous sleep I ha' known thee still to be there. Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her or think o' her, but thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will see or think o' anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than me, shalt be by th' side on't. And so I will try t' look t' th' time, and so I will try t' trust t' th' time, when thou and me at last shall walk together far awa', beyond the deep gulf, in th' country where thy little sister is." He kissed the border of her shawl again, and | Hard Times |
he said, answering her look with a shy laugh. | No speaker | know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not | questioning smile. "Of course you know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not giving you the news last | blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile. "Of course you know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd." The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott | first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile. "Of course you know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd." The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand. "Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer. In the carriage, | down, Beaufort: push up the yellow armchair; now I've got you I want a good gossip. I hear your ball was magnificent; and I understand you invited Mrs. Lemuel Struthers? Well--I've a curiosity to see the woman myself." She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingott had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of kinship in their cool domineering way and their short-cuts through the conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite (for the first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile. "Of course you know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd." The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand. "Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer. In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they never do | which the ancestress rejoined: "Know each other? Fiddlesticks! Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let the young man have his way, my dear; don't wait till the bubble's off the wine. Marry them before Lent; I may catch pneumonia any winter now, and I want to give the wedding-breakfast." These successive statements were received with the proper expressions of amusement, incredulity and gratitude; and the visit was breaking up in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess Olenska, who entered in bonnet and mantle followed by the unexpected figure of Julius Beaufort. There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between the ladies, and Mrs. Mingott held out Ferrigiani's model to the banker. "Ha! Beaufort, this is a rare favour!" (She had an odd foreign way of addressing men by their surnames.) "Thanks. I wish it might happen oftener," said the visitor in his easy arrogant way. "I'm generally so tied down; but I met the Countess Ellen in Madison Square, and she was good enough to let me walk home with her." "Ah--I hope the house will be gayer, now that Ellen's here!" cried Mrs. Mingott with a glorious effrontery. "Sit down--sit down, Beaufort: push up the yellow armchair; now I've got you I want a good gossip. I hear your ball was magnificent; and I understand you invited Mrs. Lemuel Struthers? Well--I've a curiosity to see the woman myself." She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingott had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of kinship in their cool domineering way and their short-cuts through the conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite (for the first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile. "Of course you know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd." The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand. "Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer. In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they never do anything else." And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own kind. V. The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers. Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society; but she liked to be well-informed as to its doings. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson applied to the investigation of his friends' affairs the patience of a collector and the science of a naturalist; and his sister, Miss Sophy Jackson, who lived with him, and was entertained by all the people who could not secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home bits of minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture. Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine; and as she honoured few people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janey were an excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the | "Monsieur de Camors" in Mrs. Mingott's bedroom) to picture her blameless life led in the stage-setting of adultery; but he said to himself, with considerable admiration, that if a lover had been what she wanted, the intrepid woman would have had him too. To the general relief the Countess Olenska was not present in her grandmother's drawing-room during the visit of the betrothed couple. Mrs. Mingott said she had gone out; which, on a day of such glaring sunlight, and at the "shopping hour," seemed in itself an indelicate thing for a compromised woman to do. But at any rate it spared them the embarrassment of her presence, and the faint shadow that her unhappy past might seem to shed on their radiant future. The visit went off successfully, as was to have been expected. Old Mrs. Mingott was delighted with the engagement, which, being long foreseen by watchful relatives, had been carefully passed upon in family council; and the engagement ring, a large thick sapphire set in invisible claws, met with her unqualified admiration. "It's the new setting: of course it shows the stone beautifully, but it looks a little bare to old-fashioned eyes," Mrs. Welland had explained, with a conciliatory side-glance at her future son-in-law. "Old-fashioned eyes? I hope you don't mean mine, my dear? I like all the novelties," said the ancestress, lifting the stone to her small bright orbs, which no glasses had ever disfigured. "Very handsome," she added, returning the jewel; "very liberal. In my time a cameo set in pearls was thought sufficient. But it's the hand that sets off the ring, isn't it, my dear Mr. Archer?" and she waved one of her tiny hands, with small pointed nails and rolls of aged fat encircling the wrist like ivory bracelets. "Mine was modelled in Rome by the great Ferrigiani. You should have May's done: no doubt he'll have it done, my child. Her hand is large--it's these modern sports that spread the joints--but the skin is white.--And when's the wedding to be?" she broke off, fixing her eyes on Archer's face. "Oh--" Mrs. Welland murmured, while the young man, smiling at his betrothed, replied: "As soon as ever it can, if only you'll back me up, Mrs. Mingott." "We must give them time to get to know each other a little better, mamma," Mrs. Welland interposed, with the proper affectation of reluctance; to which the ancestress rejoined: "Know each other? Fiddlesticks! Everybody in New York has always known everybody. Let the young man have his way, my dear; don't wait till the bubble's off the wine. Marry them before Lent; I may catch pneumonia any winter now, and I want to give the wedding-breakfast." These successive statements were received with the proper expressions of amusement, incredulity and gratitude; and the visit was breaking up in a vein of mild pleasantry when the door opened to admit the Countess Olenska, who entered in bonnet and mantle followed by the unexpected figure of Julius Beaufort. There was a cousinly murmur of pleasure between the ladies, and Mrs. Mingott held out Ferrigiani's model to the banker. "Ha! Beaufort, this is a rare favour!" (She had an odd foreign way of addressing men by their surnames.) "Thanks. I wish it might happen oftener," said the visitor in his easy arrogant way. "I'm generally so tied down; but I met the Countess Ellen in Madison Square, and she was good enough to let me walk home with her." "Ah--I hope the house will be gayer, now that Ellen's here!" cried Mrs. Mingott with a glorious effrontery. "Sit down--sit down, Beaufort: push up the yellow armchair; now I've got you I want a good gossip. I hear your ball was magnificent; and I understand you invited Mrs. Lemuel Struthers? Well--I've a curiosity to see the woman myself." She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingott had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of kinship in their cool domineering way and their short-cuts through the conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite (for the first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile. "Of course you know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd." The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand. "Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer. In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they never do anything else." And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own kind. V. The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers. Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society; but she liked to be well-informed as to its doings. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson applied to the investigation of his friends' affairs the patience of a collector and the science of a naturalist; and his sister, Miss Sophy Jackson, who lived with him, and was entertained by all the people who could not secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home bits of minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture. Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine; and as she honoured few people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janey were an excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the young man was uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their club) but because the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed. Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on earth, would also have asked that Mrs. Archer's food should be a little better. But then New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and Mansons and all their clan, who cared about eating and clothes and money, and the Archer-Newland-van-der-Luyden tribe, who were devoted to travel, horticulture and the best fiction, and looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure. You couldn't have everything, after all. If you dined with the Lovell Mingotts you got canvas-back and terrapin and vintage wines; at Adeline Archer's you could talk about Alpine scenery and "The Marble Faun"; and luckily the Archer Madeira had gone round the Cape. Therefore when a friendly summons came from Mrs. Archer, Mr. Jackson, who was a true eclectic, would usually say to his sister: "I've been a little gouty since my last dinner at the Lovell Mingotts'--it will do me good to diet at Adeline's." Mrs. Archer, who had long been a widow, lived with her son and daughter in West Twenty-eighth Street. An upper floor was dedicated to Newland, and the two women squeezed themselves into narrower quarters below. In an unclouded harmony of tastes and interests they cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace and wool embroidery on linen, collected American revolutionary glazed ware, subscribed to "Good Words," and read Ouida's novels for the sake of the Italian atmosphere. (They preferred those about peasant life, because of the descriptions of scenery and the pleasanter sentiments, though in general they liked novels about people in society, whose motives and habits were more comprehensible, spoke severely of Dickens, who "had never drawn a gentleman," and considered Thackeray less at home in the great world than Bulwer--who, however, was beginning to be thought old-fashioned.) Mrs. and Miss Archer were both great lovers of scenery. It was what they principally sought and admired on their occasional travels abroad; considering architecture and painting as subjects for men, and chiefly for learned persons who read Ruskin. Mrs. Archer had been born a Newland, and mother and daughter, who | Madison Square, and she was good enough to let me walk home with her." "Ah--I hope the house will be gayer, now that Ellen's here!" cried Mrs. Mingott with a glorious effrontery. "Sit down--sit down, Beaufort: push up the yellow armchair; now I've got you I want a good gossip. I hear your ball was magnificent; and I understand you invited Mrs. Lemuel Struthers? Well--I've a curiosity to see the woman myself." She had forgotten her relatives, who were drifting out into the hall under Ellen Olenska's guidance. Old Mrs. Mingott had always professed a great admiration for Julius Beaufort, and there was a kind of kinship in their cool domineering way and their short-cuts through the conventions. Now she was eagerly curious to know what had decided the Beauforts to invite (for the first time) Mrs. Lemuel Struthers, the widow of Struthers's Shoe-polish, who had returned the previous year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money--and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. In the hall, while Mrs. Welland and May drew on their furs, Archer saw that the Countess Olenska was looking at him with a faintly questioning smile. "Of course you know already--about May and me,"<|quote|>he said, answering her look with a shy laugh.</|quote|>"She scolded me for not giving you the news last night at the Opera: I had her orders to tell you that we were engaged--but I couldn't, in that crowd." The smile passed from Countess Olenska's eyes to her lips: she looked younger, more like the bold brown Ellen Mingott of his boyhood. "Of course I know; yes. And I'm so glad. But one doesn't tell such things first in a crowd." The ladies were on the threshold and she held out her hand. "Good-bye; come and see me some day," she said, still looking at Archer. In the carriage, on the way down Fifth Avenue, they talked pointedly of Mrs. Mingott, of her age, her spirit, and all her wonderful attributes. No one alluded to Ellen Olenska; but Archer knew that Mrs. Welland was thinking: "It's a mistake for Ellen to be seen, the very day after her arrival, parading up Fifth Avenue at the crowded hour with Julius Beaufort--" and the young man himself mentally added: "And she ought to know that a man who's just engaged doesn't spend his time calling on married women. But I daresay in the set she's lived in they do--they never do anything else." And, in spite of the cosmopolitan views on which he prided himself, he thanked heaven that he was a New Yorker, and about to ally himself with one of his own kind. V. The next evening old Mr. Sillerton Jackson came to dine with the Archers. Mrs. Archer was a shy woman and shrank from society; but she liked to be well-informed as to its doings. Her old friend Mr. Sillerton Jackson applied to the investigation of his friends' affairs the patience of a collector and the science of a naturalist; and his sister, Miss Sophy Jackson, who lived with him, and was entertained by all the people who could not secure her much-sought-after brother, brought home bits of minor gossip that filled out usefully the gaps in his picture. Therefore, whenever anything happened that Mrs. Archer wanted to know about, she asked Mr. Jackson to dine; and as she honoured few people with her invitations, and as she and her daughter Janey were an excellent audience, Mr. Jackson usually came himself instead of sending his sister. If he could have dictated all the conditions, he would have chosen the evenings when Newland was out; not because the young man was uncongenial to him (the two got on capitally at their club) but because the old anecdotist sometimes felt, on Newland's part, a tendency to weigh his evidence that the ladies of the family never showed. Mr. Jackson, if perfection had been attainable on earth, would also have | The Age Of Innocence |
Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else. | No speaker | dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as | more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora | as usual she blundered. Miss Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion." And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so English." "Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed." "Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner." | "Yes," said Lucy despondently. There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion." And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so English." "Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed." "Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner." "I think he was meaning to be kind." "Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett. "Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of course, I was holding back on my cousin's account." "Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could not be | nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman." "My dear Lucia--" "Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh; Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man." "Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will approve of Mr. Beebe." "I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy." "I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind the times." "Yes," said Lucy despondently. There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion." And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so English." "Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed." "Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner." "I think he was meaning to be kind." "Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett. "Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of course, I was holding back on my cousin's account." "Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could not be too careful with a young girl. Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed it. "About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?" "Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty and delicacy the same?" "So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are so difficult, I sometimes | better of it." "Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett, "that he is a Socialist?" Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching of the lips. "And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?" "I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist." "Oh, you relieve me," said Miss Bartlett. "So you think I ought to have accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and suspicious?" "Not at all," he answered; "I never suggested that." "But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness?" He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary, and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room. "Was I a bore?" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. "Why didn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I haven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as well as all dinner-time." "He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman." "My dear Lucia--" "Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh; Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man." "Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will approve of Mr. Beebe." "I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy." "I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind the times." "Yes," said Lucy despondently. There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion." And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so English." "Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed." "Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner." "I think he was meaning to be kind." "Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett. "Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of course, I was holding back on my cousin's account." "Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could not be too careful with a young girl. Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed it. "About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?" "Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty and delicacy the same?" "So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are so difficult, I sometimes think." She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking extremely pleasant. "Miss Bartlett," he cried, "it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad. Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and ask you. He would be so pleased." "Oh, Charlotte," cried Lucy to her cousin, "we must have the rooms now. The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be." Miss Bartlett was silent. "I fear," said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, "that I have been officious. I must apologize for my interference." Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett reply: "My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then, Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and then conduct him to me, in order that I may | colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr. Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some invisible obstacle. "We are most grateful to you," she was saying. "The first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a peculiarly mauvais quart d'heure." He expressed his regret. "Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us at dinner?" "Emerson." "Is he a friend of yours?" "We are friendly--as one is in pensions." "Then I will say no more." He pressed her very slightly, and she said more. "I am, as it were," she concluded, "the chaperon of my young cousin, Lucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation to people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate. I hope I acted for the best." "You acted very naturally," said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after a few moments added: "All the same, I don't think much harm would have come of accepting." "No harm, of course. But we could not be under an obligation." "He is rather a peculiar man." Again he hesitated, and then said gently: "I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you to show gratitude. He has the merit--if it is one--of saying exactly what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would value them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than he thought of being polite. It is so difficult--at least, I find it difficult--to understand people who speak the truth." Lucy was pleased, and said: "I was hoping that he was nice; I do so always hope that people will be nice." "I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every point of any importance, and so, I expect--I may say I hope--you will differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no tact and no manners--I don't mean by that that he has bad manners--and he will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of it." "Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett, "that he is a Socialist?" Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching of the lips. "And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?" "I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist." "Oh, you relieve me," said Miss Bartlett. "So you think I ought to have accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and suspicious?" "Not at all," he answered; "I never suggested that." "But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness?" He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary, and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room. "Was I a bore?" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. "Why didn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I haven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as well as all dinner-time." "He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman." "My dear Lucia--" "Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh; Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man." "Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will approve of Mr. Beebe." "I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy." "I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind the times." "Yes," said Lucy despondently. There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion." And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so English." "Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed." "Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner." "I think he was meaning to be kind." "Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett. "Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of course, I was holding back on my cousin's account." "Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could not be too careful with a young girl. Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed it. "About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?" "Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty and delicacy the same?" "So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are so difficult, I sometimes think." She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking extremely pleasant. "Miss Bartlett," he cried, "it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad. Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and ask you. He would be so pleased." "Oh, Charlotte," cried Lucy to her cousin, "we must have the rooms now. The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be." Miss Bartlett was silent. "I fear," said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, "that I have been officious. I must apologize for my interference." Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett reply: "My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then, Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?" She raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the drawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with her message. "Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events." Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously: "Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead." The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the floor, so low were their chairs. "My father," he said, "is in his bath, so you cannot thank him personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to him as soon as he comes out." Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to the delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy. "Poor young man!" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone. "How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do to keep polite." "In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready," said Mr. Beebe. Then looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own rooms, to write up his philosophic diary. "Oh, dear!" breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the winds of heaven had entered the apartment. "Gentlemen sometimes do not realize--" Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was reduced to literature. Taking up Baedeker's Handbook to Northern Italy, she committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine History. For she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the half-hour crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a sigh, and said: "I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will superintend the move." "How you do do everything," said Lucy. "Naturally, dear. It is my affair." "But I would like to help you." "No, dear." Charlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So Lucy | them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than he thought of being polite. It is so difficult--at least, I find it difficult--to understand people who speak the truth." Lucy was pleased, and said: "I was hoping that he was nice; I do so always hope that people will be nice." "I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every point of any importance, and so, I expect--I may say I hope--you will differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no tact and no manners--I don't mean by that that he has bad manners--and he will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of it." "Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett, "that he is a Socialist?" Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching of the lips. "And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?" "I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist." "Oh, you relieve me," said Miss Bartlett. "So you think I ought to have accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and suspicious?" "Not at all," he answered; "I never suggested that." "But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness?" He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary, and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room. "Was I a bore?" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. "Why didn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I haven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as well as all dinner-time." "He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman." "My dear Lucia--" "Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh; Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man." "Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will approve of Mr. Beebe." "I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy." "I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind the times." "Yes," said Lucy despondently. There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion." And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."<|quote|>Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one better than something else.</|quote|>"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so English." "Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed." "Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner." "I think he was meaning to be kind." "Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett. "Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of course, I was holding back on my cousin's account." "Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could not be too careful with a young girl. Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed it. "About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?" "Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty and delicacy the same?" "So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are so difficult, I sometimes think." She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking extremely pleasant. "Miss Bartlett," he cried, "it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad. Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and ask you. He would be so pleased." "Oh, Charlotte," cried Lucy to her | A Room With A View |
"so did I." | Don Lavington | did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, | some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, | a shudder as he turned away. "You wretches! Mas' Don, I felt as I lay here last night, all dull and miserable and sick, and hardly able to bear myself--I felt so miserable because I knew I must have shot some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, for I wish with all my heart I'd shot the lot. Hark, there!" They listened, and could hear a burst of shouting and laughing. "That's them sentries gone down now to the feast. I say, Mas' Don, look at these | exchanged looks full of misery and despair, and then gazed with wonder and loathing at the new comers, who walked slowly about for a few minutes, and then went and leaned their backs against the palisading of the _pah_, and partially supported themselves upon their spears. "Ugh!" ejaculated Jem with a shudder as he turned away. "You wretches! Mas' Don, I felt as I lay here last night, all dull and miserable and sick, and hardly able to bear myself--I felt so miserable because I knew I must have shot some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, for I wish with all my heart I'd shot the lot. Hark, there!" They listened, and could hear a burst of shouting and laughing. "That's them sentries gone down now to the feast. I say, Mas' Don, look at these here fellows." "Yes, Jem, I've been looking at them. It's horrible, and we must escape." They sat gazing at their guards again, to see that they were flushed, their eyes full, heavy, and starting, and that they were absolutely stupefied and torpid as some huge serpent which has finished a | sitting motionless. All through the rest of that hour, and hour after hour, till towards evening, did the wretched prisoners sit in despair and misery without food or water; and the sounds of merriment and feasting came loudly to where they were. The sun was descending rapidly when about half-a-dozen of the conquering tribe came up to the _pah_, with the result that those who were on guard suddenly grew wildly excited, and giving up their duties to the new comers, uttered eager shouts and rushed off in a way that was frantic in the extreme. Don and Jem again exchanged looks full of misery and despair, and then gazed with wonder and loathing at the new comers, who walked slowly about for a few minutes, and then went and leaned their backs against the palisading of the _pah_, and partially supported themselves upon their spears. "Ugh!" ejaculated Jem with a shudder as he turned away. "You wretches! Mas' Don, I felt as I lay here last night, all dull and miserable and sick, and hardly able to bear myself--I felt so miserable because I knew I must have shot some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, for I wish with all my heart I'd shot the lot. Hark, there!" They listened, and could hear a burst of shouting and laughing. "That's them sentries gone down now to the feast. I say, Mas' Don, look at these here fellows." "Yes, Jem, I've been looking at them. It's horrible, and we must escape." They sat gazing at their guards again, to see that they were flushed, their eyes full, heavy, and starting, and that they were absolutely stupefied and torpid as some huge serpent which has finished a meal. "They must be all drunk, Jem," whispered Don, with a fresh shudder of horror and loathing. "No, Mas' Don, 'tarn't that," said Jem, with a look of disgust. "Old Mike used to tell us stories, and most of 'em was yarns as I didn't believe; but he told us one thing as I do believe now. He said as some of the blacks in Africa would go with the hunters who killed the hippipperpothy-mouses, and when they'd killed one, they'd light a fire, and then cut off long strips of the big beast, hold 'em in the flame for | in a peculiarly hard, wild way. Don seemed to be reading Jem's thoughts as his sight plunged deeply into the eyes of his companion, and as he gazed, he shuddered, and tried to look elsewhere. But he could not look elsewhere, only hard at Jem, who also shuddered, and looked shame-faced and horrified. For they were reading each other's thoughts only too correctly, and the effect of that perusal was to make big drops of perspiration roll down Jem's face, and to turn Don deadly pale. At last each snatched his eyes away, Jem to watch the prisoners, Don to close his, and sit trembling and listening to the bursts of merriment which came up. At such times, in spite of their efforts, they could not imitate the apathy of the New Zealanders, but gazed wildly at each other, trying to make themselves believe that what they imagined was false, or else the prisoners would have shown some sign of excitement. At last Jem ceased to make any pretence about the matter. He stared speechlessly and full of misery at Don, who let his eyes rest wildly on Jem's for a time before dropping his head upon his chest, and sitting motionless. All through the rest of that hour, and hour after hour, till towards evening, did the wretched prisoners sit in despair and misery without food or water; and the sounds of merriment and feasting came loudly to where they were. The sun was descending rapidly when about half-a-dozen of the conquering tribe came up to the _pah_, with the result that those who were on guard suddenly grew wildly excited, and giving up their duties to the new comers, uttered eager shouts and rushed off in a way that was frantic in the extreme. Don and Jem again exchanged looks full of misery and despair, and then gazed with wonder and loathing at the new comers, who walked slowly about for a few minutes, and then went and leaned their backs against the palisading of the _pah_, and partially supported themselves upon their spears. "Ugh!" ejaculated Jem with a shudder as he turned away. "You wretches! Mas' Don, I felt as I lay here last night, all dull and miserable and sick, and hardly able to bear myself--I felt so miserable because I knew I must have shot some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, for I wish with all my heart I'd shot the lot. Hark, there!" They listened, and could hear a burst of shouting and laughing. "That's them sentries gone down now to the feast. I say, Mas' Don, look at these here fellows." "Yes, Jem, I've been looking at them. It's horrible, and we must escape." They sat gazing at their guards again, to see that they were flushed, their eyes full, heavy, and starting, and that they were absolutely stupefied and torpid as some huge serpent which has finished a meal. "They must be all drunk, Jem," whispered Don, with a fresh shudder of horror and loathing. "No, Mas' Don, 'tarn't that," said Jem, with a look of disgust. "Old Mike used to tell us stories, and most of 'em was yarns as I didn't believe; but he told us one thing as I do believe now. He said as some of the blacks in Africa would go with the hunters who killed the hippipperpothy-mouses, and when they'd killed one, they'd light a fire, and then cut off long strips of the big beast, hold 'em in the flame for a bit, and then eat 'em, and cut off more strips and eat them, and go on eating all day till they could hardly see or move." "Yes, I remember, Jem; and he said the men ate till they were drunk; and you said it was all nonsense, for a man couldn't get drunk without drink." "Yes, Mas' Don; but I was all wrong, and Mike was right. Those wretches there are as much like Mike Bannock was when he bored a hole in the rum puncheon as can be. Eating too much makes people as stupid as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here." "Knowing what you do, Jem?" "Yes, Mas' Don, knowing what I do. It's what you know too. I can see you do." Don shuddered. "Don't, Jem, don't; it's too horrid even to think about." "Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people's used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don't seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas' Don, I'd rather ha' been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming ashore; | so lined in curves that it seemed to be absolutely blue, walked slowly over to the merry group, spear in hand, to give one child a poke with the butt, another a sharp blow over the head, evidently with the intention of producing silence; but in the case of the younger children his movements had the opposite effect, and this roused the ire of some of the women, who spoke out angrily enough to make the tall, blue-faced savage give a threatening gesture with his spear. Just at that moment, however, a loud shouting and singing arose, which took the man's attention, and he and his fellows mounted on a stage at one corner of the _pah_ to stand leaning upon their spears, gazing down at the festivities being carried on at the edge of the sands below. For some time past it had seemed to Don that the plundering party had fired the village, for a tall column of smoke had risen up, and this had died down and risen again as combustible matter had caught. The fire was too far below to be seen, but the smoke rose in clouds as the work of destruction seemed to be going on. The singing and shouting increased, and once or twice the other prisoners appeared to take an excited interest in the sounds that came up to them; but they only sank directly after into a state of moody apathy, letting their chins go down upon their chests, and many of them dropping off to sleep. The noise and shouting had been going on for some time, and then ceased, to be succeeded by a low, busy murmur, as of a vast swarm of bees; and now, after sitting very silent and thoughtful, watching the faint smoke which came up from the fire, and eagerly drinking in the various sounds, Don turned his eyes in a curiously furtive manner to steal a look at Jem. He did not move his head, but proceeded with the greatest caution, so as to try and read his companion's countenance, when, to his surprise, he found that Jem was stealing a look at him, and both, as it were, snatched their eyes away, and began looking at the prisoners. But at that time it was as if the eyes of both were filled with some strange attractive force, which made them turn and gaze in a peculiarly hard, wild way. Don seemed to be reading Jem's thoughts as his sight plunged deeply into the eyes of his companion, and as he gazed, he shuddered, and tried to look elsewhere. But he could not look elsewhere, only hard at Jem, who also shuddered, and looked shame-faced and horrified. For they were reading each other's thoughts only too correctly, and the effect of that perusal was to make big drops of perspiration roll down Jem's face, and to turn Don deadly pale. At last each snatched his eyes away, Jem to watch the prisoners, Don to close his, and sit trembling and listening to the bursts of merriment which came up. At such times, in spite of their efforts, they could not imitate the apathy of the New Zealanders, but gazed wildly at each other, trying to make themselves believe that what they imagined was false, or else the prisoners would have shown some sign of excitement. At last Jem ceased to make any pretence about the matter. He stared speechlessly and full of misery at Don, who let his eyes rest wildly on Jem's for a time before dropping his head upon his chest, and sitting motionless. All through the rest of that hour, and hour after hour, till towards evening, did the wretched prisoners sit in despair and misery without food or water; and the sounds of merriment and feasting came loudly to where they were. The sun was descending rapidly when about half-a-dozen of the conquering tribe came up to the _pah_, with the result that those who were on guard suddenly grew wildly excited, and giving up their duties to the new comers, uttered eager shouts and rushed off in a way that was frantic in the extreme. Don and Jem again exchanged looks full of misery and despair, and then gazed with wonder and loathing at the new comers, who walked slowly about for a few minutes, and then went and leaned their backs against the palisading of the _pah_, and partially supported themselves upon their spears. "Ugh!" ejaculated Jem with a shudder as he turned away. "You wretches! Mas' Don, I felt as I lay here last night, all dull and miserable and sick, and hardly able to bear myself--I felt so miserable because I knew I must have shot some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, for I wish with all my heart I'd shot the lot. Hark, there!" They listened, and could hear a burst of shouting and laughing. "That's them sentries gone down now to the feast. I say, Mas' Don, look at these here fellows." "Yes, Jem, I've been looking at them. It's horrible, and we must escape." They sat gazing at their guards again, to see that they were flushed, their eyes full, heavy, and starting, and that they were absolutely stupefied and torpid as some huge serpent which has finished a meal. "They must be all drunk, Jem," whispered Don, with a fresh shudder of horror and loathing. "No, Mas' Don, 'tarn't that," said Jem, with a look of disgust. "Old Mike used to tell us stories, and most of 'em was yarns as I didn't believe; but he told us one thing as I do believe now. He said as some of the blacks in Africa would go with the hunters who killed the hippipperpothy-mouses, and when they'd killed one, they'd light a fire, and then cut off long strips of the big beast, hold 'em in the flame for a bit, and then eat 'em, and cut off more strips and eat them, and go on eating all day till they could hardly see or move." "Yes, I remember, Jem; and he said the men ate till they were drunk; and you said it was all nonsense, for a man couldn't get drunk without drink." "Yes, Mas' Don; but I was all wrong, and Mike was right. Those wretches there are as much like Mike Bannock was when he bored a hole in the rum puncheon as can be. Eating too much makes people as stupid as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here." "Knowing what you do, Jem?" "Yes, Mas' Don, knowing what I do. It's what you know too. I can see you do." Don shuddered. "Don't, Jem, don't; it's too horrid even to think about." "Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people's used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don't seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas' Don, I'd rather ha' been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming ashore; for I feel as if I can't stand this. There, listen!" There was a sound of shouting and singing from the beach below, and one of the guards tossed up his spear in a sleepy way, and shouted too, but only to subside again into a sluggish state of torpidity. "Why, Mas' Don, by-and-by they'll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?" "The same as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No." "No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that." "But only let us have a fair chance at them again, Jem, and I don't think we shall feel very sorry if we slay a few." "Sorry?" said Jem, between his teeth. "I mean a hundred of 'em at least, as soon as we can get away; and get away we will." They sat listening till the horrible feast below was at an end, and everything became so silent that they concluded that the enemy must be asleep, and began to wonder that the prisoners should all crouch together in so apathetic a state. But all at once, when everything seemed most still, and half the prisoners were dozing, there came the heavy trampling of feet; the guards roused up, and in the dim light of the late evening, the bonds which secured the captives' feet were loosened, and, like a herd of cattle, they were driven down from the platform upon which the _pah_ was constructed, and along the slope to the sands, where the canoes rode lightly on the swell. Into these they were forced to climb, some getting in with alacrity, others slowly and painfully; two or three falling helplessly in the water, and then, half drowned, being dragged in over the side. "Not a bit sorry I killed some of 'em," muttered Jem. "They arn't men, Mas' Don, but savage beasts." It did not take long, for there was plenty of room in the little fleet of canoes. The prisoners were divided, some being placed in the canoes with the plunder, and treated as if they were spoil. Others were divided among the long canoes, manned by the enemy, whose own wounded men, even to the worst, did not hesitate to take to a | for some time, and then ceased, to be succeeded by a low, busy murmur, as of a vast swarm of bees; and now, after sitting very silent and thoughtful, watching the faint smoke which came up from the fire, and eagerly drinking in the various sounds, Don turned his eyes in a curiously furtive manner to steal a look at Jem. He did not move his head, but proceeded with the greatest caution, so as to try and read his companion's countenance, when, to his surprise, he found that Jem was stealing a look at him, and both, as it were, snatched their eyes away, and began looking at the prisoners. But at that time it was as if the eyes of both were filled with some strange attractive force, which made them turn and gaze in a peculiarly hard, wild way. Don seemed to be reading Jem's thoughts as his sight plunged deeply into the eyes of his companion, and as he gazed, he shuddered, and tried to look elsewhere. But he could not look elsewhere, only hard at Jem, who also shuddered, and looked shame-faced and horrified. For they were reading each other's thoughts only too correctly, and the effect of that perusal was to make big drops of perspiration roll down Jem's face, and to turn Don deadly pale. At last each snatched his eyes away, Jem to watch the prisoners, Don to close his, and sit trembling and listening to the bursts of merriment which came up. At such times, in spite of their efforts, they could not imitate the apathy of the New Zealanders, but gazed wildly at each other, trying to make themselves believe that what they imagined was false, or else the prisoners would have shown some sign of excitement. At last Jem ceased to make any pretence about the matter. He stared speechlessly and full of misery at Don, who let his eyes rest wildly on Jem's for a time before dropping his head upon his chest, and sitting motionless. All through the rest of that hour, and hour after hour, till towards evening, did the wretched prisoners sit in despair and misery without food or water; and the sounds of merriment and feasting came loudly to where they were. The sun was descending rapidly when about half-a-dozen of the conquering tribe came up to the _pah_, with the result that those who were on guard suddenly grew wildly excited, and giving up their duties to the new comers, uttered eager shouts and rushed off in a way that was frantic in the extreme. Don and Jem again exchanged looks full of misery and despair, and then gazed with wonder and loathing at the new comers, who walked slowly about for a few minutes, and then went and leaned their backs against the palisading of the _pah_, and partially supported themselves upon their spears. "Ugh!" ejaculated Jem with a shudder as he turned away. "You wretches! Mas' Don, I felt as I lay here last night, all dull and miserable and sick, and hardly able to bear myself--I felt so miserable because I knew I must have shot some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don;<|quote|>"so did I."</|quote|>"Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, for I wish with all my heart I'd shot the lot. Hark, there!" They listened, and could hear a burst of shouting and laughing. "That's them sentries gone down now to the feast. I say, Mas' Don, look at these here fellows." "Yes, Jem, I've been looking at them. It's horrible, and we must escape." They sat gazing at their guards again, to see that they were flushed, their eyes full, heavy, and starting, and that they were absolutely stupefied and torpid as some huge serpent which has finished a meal. "They must be all drunk, Jem," whispered Don, with a fresh shudder of horror and loathing. "No, Mas' Don, 'tarn't that," said Jem, with a look of disgust. "Old Mike used to tell us stories, and most of 'em was yarns as I didn't believe; but he told us one thing as I do believe now. He said as some of the blacks in Africa would go with the hunters who killed the hippipperpothy-mouses, and when they'd killed one, they'd light a fire, and then cut off long strips of the big beast, hold 'em in the flame for a bit, and then eat 'em, and cut off more strips and eat them, and go on eating all day till they could hardly see or move." "Yes, I remember, Jem; and he said the men ate till they were drunk; and you said it was all nonsense, for a man couldn't get drunk without drink." "Yes, Mas' Don; but I was all wrong, and Mike was right. Those wretches there are as much like Mike Bannock was when he bored a hole in the rum puncheon as can be. Eating too much makes people as stupid as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here." "Knowing what you do, Jem?" "Yes, Mas' Don, knowing what I do. It's what you know too. I can see you do." Don shuddered. "Don't, Jem, don't; it's too horrid even to think about." "Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people's used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don't seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas' Don, I'd rather ha' been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming | Don Lavington |
"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?" | Mr. Willoughby | in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I | you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, | his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere. "If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne _does_, she has _long_ forgiven you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and thoughtfulness on his own, "how _you_ may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the | to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma from your sister." "Is this the real reason of your coming?" "Upon my soul it is," was his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere. "If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne _does_, she has _long_ forgiven you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and thoughtfulness on his own, "how _you_ may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me, it is worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly | whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she said, after a moment s recollection, "Mr. Willoughby, you _ought_ to feel, and I certainly _do_, that after what has passed, your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my notice, requires a very particular excuse. What is it, that you mean by it?" "I mean," said he, with serious energy, "if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do _now_. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma from your sister." "Is this the real reason of your coming?" "Upon my soul it is," was his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere. "If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne _does_, she has _long_ forgiven you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and thoughtfulness on his own, "how _you_ may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me, it is worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your sister s lovely person and interesting manners could not but please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a kind it is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what _she_ was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at first I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every means in my | a fine mood for gaiety. Tell me honestly" a deeper glow overspreading his cheeks, "do you think me most a knave or a fool?" Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to think that he must be in liquor; the strangeness of such a visit, and of such manners, seemed no otherwise intelligible; and with this impression she immediately rose, saying, "Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe. I am not at leisure to remain with you longer. Whatever your business may be with me, it will be better recollected and explained to-morrow." "I understand you," he replied, with an expressive smile, and a voice perfectly calm; "yes, I am very drunk. A pint of porter with my cold beef at Marlborough was enough to over-set me." "At Marlborough!" cried Elinor, more and more at a loss to understand what he would be at. "Yes, I left London this morning at eight o clock, and the only ten minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a nuncheon at Marlborough." The steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he spoke, convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she said, after a moment s recollection, "Mr. Willoughby, you _ought_ to feel, and I certainly _do_, that after what has passed, your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my notice, requires a very particular excuse. What is it, that you mean by it?" "I mean," said he, with serious energy, "if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do _now_. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma from your sister." "Is this the real reason of your coming?" "Upon my soul it is," was his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere. "If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne _does_, she has _long_ forgiven you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and thoughtfulness on his own, "how _you_ may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me, it is worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your sister s lovely person and interesting manners could not but please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a kind it is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what _she_ was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at first I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every means in my power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design of returning her affection." Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most angry contempt, stopped him, by saying, "It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any thing. Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the subject." "I insist on you hearing the whole of it," he replied, "My fortune was never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of; and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty, which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, | to the drawing-room, she entered it, and saw only Willoughby. CHAPTER XLIV. Elinor, starting back with a look of horror at the sight of him, obeyed the first impulse of her heart in turning instantly to quit the room, and her hand was already on the lock, when its action was suspended by his hastily advancing, and saying, in a voice rather of command than supplication, "Miss Dashwood, for half an hour for ten minutes I entreat you to stay." "No, sir," she replied with firmness, "I shall _not_ stay. Your business cannot be with _me_. The servants, I suppose, forgot to tell you that Mr. Palmer was not in the house." "Had they told me," he cried with vehemence, "that Mr. Palmer and all his relations were at the devil, it would not have turned me from the door. My business is with you, and only you." "With me!" in the utmost amazement "well, sir, be quick and if you can less violent." "Sit down, and I will be both." She hesitated; she knew not what to do. The possibility of Colonel Brandon s arriving and finding her there, came across her. But she had promised to hear him, and her curiosity no less than her honor was engaged. After a moment s recollection, therefore, concluding that prudence required dispatch, and that her acquiescence would best promote it, she walked silently towards the table, and sat down. He took the opposite chair, and for half a minute not a word was said by either. "Pray be quick, sir," said Elinor, impatiently; "I have no time to spare." He was sitting in an attitude of deep meditation, and seemed not to hear her. "Your sister," said he, with abruptness, a moment afterwards "is out of danger. I heard it from the servant. God be praised! But is it true? is it really true?" Elinor would not speak. He repeated the inquiry with yet greater eagerness. "For God s sake tell me, is she out of danger, or is she not?" "We hope she is." He rose up, and walked across the room. "Had I known as much half an hour ago; but since I _am_ here," speaking with a forced vivacity as he returned to his seat, "what does it signify? For once, Miss Dashwood it will be the last time, perhaps let us be cheerful together. I am in a fine mood for gaiety. Tell me honestly" a deeper glow overspreading his cheeks, "do you think me most a knave or a fool?" Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to think that he must be in liquor; the strangeness of such a visit, and of such manners, seemed no otherwise intelligible; and with this impression she immediately rose, saying, "Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe. I am not at leisure to remain with you longer. Whatever your business may be with me, it will be better recollected and explained to-morrow." "I understand you," he replied, with an expressive smile, and a voice perfectly calm; "yes, I am very drunk. A pint of porter with my cold beef at Marlborough was enough to over-set me." "At Marlborough!" cried Elinor, more and more at a loss to understand what he would be at. "Yes, I left London this morning at eight o clock, and the only ten minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a nuncheon at Marlborough." The steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he spoke, convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she said, after a moment s recollection, "Mr. Willoughby, you _ought_ to feel, and I certainly _do_, that after what has passed, your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my notice, requires a very particular excuse. What is it, that you mean by it?" "I mean," said he, with serious energy, "if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do _now_. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma from your sister." "Is this the real reason of your coming?" "Upon my soul it is," was his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere. "If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne _does_, she has _long_ forgiven you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and thoughtfulness on his own, "how _you_ may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me, it is worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your sister s lovely person and interesting manners could not but please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a kind it is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what _she_ was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at first I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every means in my power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design of returning her affection." Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most angry contempt, stopped him, by saying, "It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any thing. Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the subject." "I insist on you hearing the whole of it," he replied, "My fortune was never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of; and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty, which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much, I was acting in this manner, trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it. But one thing may be said for me: even in that horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I meditated, because I did not _then_ know what it was to love. But have I ever known it? Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? or, what is more, could I have sacrificed hers? But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing." "You did then," said Elinor, a little softened, "believe yourself at one time attached to her?" "To have resisted such attractions, to have withstood such tenderness! Is there a man on earth who could have done it? Yes, I found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my intentions were strictly honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even _then_, however, when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my circumstances were so greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here nor will I stop for _you_ to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already bound. The event has proved, that I was a cunning fool, providing with great circumspection for a possible opportunity of making myself contemptible and wretched for ever. At last, however, my resolution was taken, and I had determined, as soon as I could engage her alone, to justify the attentions I had so invariably paid her, and openly assure her of an affection which I had already taken such pains to display. But in the interim in the interim of the very few hours that were to pass, before I could have an opportunity of speaking with her in private a circumstance occurred an unlucky circumstance, to ruin all my resolution, and with it all | whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she said, after a moment s recollection, "Mr. Willoughby, you _ought_ to feel, and I certainly _do_, that after what has passed, your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my notice, requires a very particular excuse. What is it, that you mean by it?" "I mean," said he, with serious energy, "if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do _now_. I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma from your sister." "Is this the real reason of your coming?" "Upon my soul it is," was his answer, with a warmth which brought all the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her think him sincere. "If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne _does_, she has _long_ forgiven you." "Has she?" he cried, in the same eager tone.<|quote|>"Then she has forgiven me before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on more reasonable grounds. _Now_ will you listen to me?"</|quote|>Elinor bowed her assent. "I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and thoughtfulness on his own, "how _you_ may have accounted for my behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me. Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me, it is worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your sister s lovely person and interesting manners could not but please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a kind it is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what _she_ was, that my heart should have been so insensible! But at first I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it. Careless of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every means in my power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design of returning her affection." Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most angry contempt, stopped him, by saying, "It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any thing. Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the subject." "I insist on you hearing the whole of it," he replied, "My fortune was never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune. To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of; and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty, which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much, I was acting in this manner, trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it. But one thing may be said for me: even in that horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury | Sense And Sensibility |
The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says: | No speaker | "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I | of them with the inscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I stir myself. In the middle | heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plate set on some bricks. We kindle a fire. Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully to one side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with the inscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. We take out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cuts off a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eat slowly and with gusto. "How does it | take a breather. The goose is dead, Kat saw to that in a moment. We intend to roast it, without telling anybody. I fetch a stove and wood from the hut and we crawl into a small deserted lean-to which we use for such purposes. The single window space is heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plate set on some bricks. We kindle a fire. Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully to one side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with the inscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. We take out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cuts off a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eat slowly and with gusto. "How does it taste, Kat?" "Good! And yours?" "Good, Kat." We are brothers and press on one another the choicest pieces. Afterwards I smoke a cigarette and Kat a cigar. There is still a lot left. "How would it be, Kat, if we took a bit to Kropp and Tjaden?" "Sure," says he. | breath, whip up the revolver, it cracks, the dog leaps howling to one side, I make for the door of the shed and fall head over heels over one of the damned geese. At full speed I seize it again, and with a swing toss it over the wall and clamber up. No sooner am I on top than the dog is up again as lively as ever and springs at me. Quickly I let myself drop. Ten paces away stands Kat with the goose under his arm. As soon as he sees me we run. At last we can take a breather. The goose is dead, Kat saw to that in a moment. We intend to roast it, without telling anybody. I fetch a stove and wood from the hut and we crawl into a small deserted lean-to which we use for such purposes. The single window space is heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plate set on some bricks. We kindle a fire. Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully to one side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with the inscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. We take out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cuts off a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eat slowly and with gusto. "How does it taste, Kat?" "Good! And yours?" "Good, Kat." We are brothers and press on one another the choicest pieces. Afterwards I smoke a cigarette and Kat a cigar. There is still a lot left. "How would it be, Kat, if we took a bit to Kropp and Tjaden?" "Sure," says he. We carve off a portion and wrap it up carefully in newspaper. The rest we thought of taking over to the hut. Kat laughs, and simply says: "Tjaden." I agree, we will have to take it all. So we go off to the fowl-house to wake them. But first we pack away the feathers. Kropp and Tjaden take us for magicians. Then they get busy with their teeth. Tjaden holds a wing in his mouth with both hands like a mouth-organ, and gnaws. He drinks the gravy from the pot and smacks his lips: "May I never forget you!" We | in my fists. Then the row begins; one of them gets his breath and goes off like an alarm clock. Before I can do anything, something comes in from outside; I feel a blow, lie outstretched on the floor, and hear awful growls. A dog. I steal a glance to the side, he makes a snap at my throat. I lie still and tuck my chin into my collar. It's a bull dog. After an eternity he withdraws his head and sits down beside me. But if I make the least movement he growls. I consider. The only thing to do is to get hold of my small revolver, and that too before anyone arrives. Inch by inch I move my hand toward it. I have the feeling that it lasts an hour. The slightest movement and then an awful growl; I lie still, then try again. When at last I have the revolver my hand starts to tremble. I press it against the ground and then say over to myself: Jerk the revolver up, fire before he has a chance to grab, and then jump up. Slowly I take a deep breath and become calmer. Then I hold my breath, whip up the revolver, it cracks, the dog leaps howling to one side, I make for the door of the shed and fall head over heels over one of the damned geese. At full speed I seize it again, and with a swing toss it over the wall and clamber up. No sooner am I on top than the dog is up again as lively as ever and springs at me. Quickly I let myself drop. Ten paces away stands Kat with the goose under his arm. As soon as he sees me we run. At last we can take a breather. The goose is dead, Kat saw to that in a moment. We intend to roast it, without telling anybody. I fetch a stove and wood from the hut and we crawl into a small deserted lean-to which we use for such purposes. The single window space is heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plate set on some bricks. We kindle a fire. Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully to one side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with the inscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. We take out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cuts off a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eat slowly and with gusto. "How does it taste, Kat?" "Good! And yours?" "Good, Kat." We are brothers and press on one another the choicest pieces. Afterwards I smoke a cigarette and Kat a cigar. There is still a lot left. "How would it be, Kat, if we took a bit to Kropp and Tjaden?" "Sure," says he. We carve off a portion and wrap it up carefully in newspaper. The rest we thought of taking over to the hut. Kat laughs, and simply says: "Tjaden." I agree, we will have to take it all. So we go off to the fowl-house to wake them. But first we pack away the feathers. Kropp and Tjaden take us for magicians. Then they get busy with their teeth. Tjaden holds a wing in his mouth with both hands like a mouth-organ, and gnaws. He drinks the gravy from the pot and smacks his lips: "May I never forget you!" We go to our hut. Again there is the lofty sky with the stars and the oncoming dawn, and I pass on beneath it, a soldier with big boots and a full belly, a little soldier in the early morning--but by my side, stooping and angular, goes Kat, my comrade. The outlines of the huts are upon us in the dawn like a dark, deep sleep. CHAPTER VI There are rumours of an offensive. We go up to the front two days earlier than usual. On the way we pass a shelled school-house. Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of fir, and pine, and the forest. There are at least a hundred. "That's a good preparation for the offensive," says Müller astonished. "They're for us," growls Detering. "Don't talk rot," says Kat to him angrily. "You be thankful if you get so much as a coffin," grins Tjaden, "they'll slip you a water-proof sheet for your old Aunt Sally of a carcase." The others jest too, unpleasant jests, but what else can a man do?--The coffins are really for us. The organization surpasses itself in that kind of | It isn't usual to make complaints in the army. He understands it all right though, and lectures Himmelstoss, making it plain to him that the front isn't a parade-ground. Then comes Tjaden's turn, who gets a long sermon and three days open arrest. He gives Kropp a wink and one day's open arrest. "It can't be helped," he says to him regretfully. He is a decent fellow. Open arrest is quite pleasant. The clink was once a fowl-house; there we can visit the prisoners, we know how to manage it. Close arrest would have meant the cellar. They used to tie us to a tree, but that is forbidden now. In many ways we are treated quite like men. An hour after Tjaden and Kropp are settled in behind their wire-netting we make our way in to them. Tjaden greets us crowing. Then we play skat far into the night. Tjaden wins of course, the lucky wretch. * * When we break up Kat says to me: "What do you say to some roast goose?" "Not bad," I agree. We climb up on a munition-waggon. The ride costs us two cigarettes. Kat has marked the spot exactly. The shed belongs to a regimental headquarters. I agree to get the goose and receive my instructions. The out-house is behind the wall and the door shuts with just a peg. Kat hoists me up. I rest my foot in his hands and climb over the wall. Kat keeps watch below. I wait a few moments to accustom my eyes to the darkness. Then I recognize the shed. Softly I steal across, lift the peg, pull it out and open the door. I distinguish two white patches. Two geese, that's bad: if I grab one the other will cackle. Well, both of them--if I'm quick, it can be done. I make a jump. I catch hold of one and the next instant the second. Like a madman I bash their heads against the wall to stun them. But I haven't quite enough weight. The beasts cackle and strike out with their feet and wings. I fight desperately, but Lord! what a kick a goose has! They struggle and I stagger about. In the dark these white patches are terrifying. My arms have grown wings and I'm almost afraid of going up into the sky, as though I held a couple of captive balloons in my fists. Then the row begins; one of them gets his breath and goes off like an alarm clock. Before I can do anything, something comes in from outside; I feel a blow, lie outstretched on the floor, and hear awful growls. A dog. I steal a glance to the side, he makes a snap at my throat. I lie still and tuck my chin into my collar. It's a bull dog. After an eternity he withdraws his head and sits down beside me. But if I make the least movement he growls. I consider. The only thing to do is to get hold of my small revolver, and that too before anyone arrives. Inch by inch I move my hand toward it. I have the feeling that it lasts an hour. The slightest movement and then an awful growl; I lie still, then try again. When at last I have the revolver my hand starts to tremble. I press it against the ground and then say over to myself: Jerk the revolver up, fire before he has a chance to grab, and then jump up. Slowly I take a deep breath and become calmer. Then I hold my breath, whip up the revolver, it cracks, the dog leaps howling to one side, I make for the door of the shed and fall head over heels over one of the damned geese. At full speed I seize it again, and with a swing toss it over the wall and clamber up. No sooner am I on top than the dog is up again as lively as ever and springs at me. Quickly I let myself drop. Ten paces away stands Kat with the goose under his arm. As soon as he sees me we run. At last we can take a breather. The goose is dead, Kat saw to that in a moment. We intend to roast it, without telling anybody. I fetch a stove and wood from the hut and we crawl into a small deserted lean-to which we use for such purposes. The single window space is heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plate set on some bricks. We kindle a fire. Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully to one side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with the inscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. We take out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cuts off a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eat slowly and with gusto. "How does it taste, Kat?" "Good! And yours?" "Good, Kat." We are brothers and press on one another the choicest pieces. Afterwards I smoke a cigarette and Kat a cigar. There is still a lot left. "How would it be, Kat, if we took a bit to Kropp and Tjaden?" "Sure," says he. We carve off a portion and wrap it up carefully in newspaper. The rest we thought of taking over to the hut. Kat laughs, and simply says: "Tjaden." I agree, we will have to take it all. So we go off to the fowl-house to wake them. But first we pack away the feathers. Kropp and Tjaden take us for magicians. Then they get busy with their teeth. Tjaden holds a wing in his mouth with both hands like a mouth-organ, and gnaws. He drinks the gravy from the pot and smacks his lips: "May I never forget you!" We go to our hut. Again there is the lofty sky with the stars and the oncoming dawn, and I pass on beneath it, a soldier with big boots and a full belly, a little soldier in the early morning--but by my side, stooping and angular, goes Kat, my comrade. The outlines of the huts are upon us in the dawn like a dark, deep sleep. CHAPTER VI There are rumours of an offensive. We go up to the front two days earlier than usual. On the way we pass a shelled school-house. Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of fir, and pine, and the forest. There are at least a hundred. "That's a good preparation for the offensive," says Müller astonished. "They're for us," growls Detering. "Don't talk rot," says Kat to him angrily. "You be thankful if you get so much as a coffin," grins Tjaden, "they'll slip you a water-proof sheet for your old Aunt Sally of a carcase." The others jest too, unpleasant jests, but what else can a man do?--The coffins are really for us. The organization surpasses itself in that kind of thing. Ahead of us everything is simmering. The first night we try to get our bearings. When it is fairly quiet we can hear the transports behind the enemy lines rolling ceaselessly until dawn. Kat says they do not go back but are bringing up troops--troops, munitions, and shells. The English artillery has been strengthened, that we can detect at once. There are at least four more batteries of twenty-fives to the right of the farm, and behind the poplars they have put in trench-mortars. Besides these they have brought up a number of those little French beasts with instantaneous fuses. We are in low spirits. After we have been in the dug-outs two hours our own shells begin to fall in the trench. This is the third time in four weeks. If it were simply a mistake in aim no one would say anything, but the truth is that the barrels are worn out. The shots are often so uncertain that they land within our own lines. To-night two of our men were wounded by them. * * The front is a cage in which we must await fearfully whatever may happen. We lie under the network of arching shells and live in a suspense of uncertainty. Over us Chance hovers. If a shot comes, we can duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where it will fall. It is this Chance that makes us indifferent. A few months ago I was sitting in a dug-out playing skat; after a while I stood up and went to visit some friends in another dug-out. On my return nothing more was to be seen of the first one, it had been blown to pieces by a direct hit. I went back to the second and arrived just in time to lend a hand digging it out. In the interval it had been buried. It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bomb-proof dug-out I may be smashed to atoms and in the open may survive ten hours' bombardment unscathed. No soldier outlives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck. * * We must look out for our bread. The rats have become much more numerous lately because the trenches are no longer in good condition. Detering says | I agree to get the goose and receive my instructions. The out-house is behind the wall and the door shuts with just a peg. Kat hoists me up. I rest my foot in his hands and climb over the wall. Kat keeps watch below. I wait a few moments to accustom my eyes to the darkness. Then I recognize the shed. Softly I steal across, lift the peg, pull it out and open the door. I distinguish two white patches. Two geese, that's bad: if I grab one the other will cackle. Well, both of them--if I'm quick, it can be done. I make a jump. I catch hold of one and the next instant the second. Like a madman I bash their heads against the wall to stun them. But I haven't quite enough weight. The beasts cackle and strike out with their feet and wings. I fight desperately, but Lord! what a kick a goose has! They struggle and I stagger about. In the dark these white patches are terrifying. My arms have grown wings and I'm almost afraid of going up into the sky, as though I held a couple of captive balloons in my fists. Then the row begins; one of them gets his breath and goes off like an alarm clock. Before I can do anything, something comes in from outside; I feel a blow, lie outstretched on the floor, and hear awful growls. A dog. I steal a glance to the side, he makes a snap at my throat. I lie still and tuck my chin into my collar. It's a bull dog. After an eternity he withdraws his head and sits down beside me. But if I make the least movement he growls. I consider. The only thing to do is to get hold of my small revolver, and that too before anyone arrives. Inch by inch I move my hand toward it. I have the feeling that it lasts an hour. The slightest movement and then an awful growl; I lie still, then try again. When at last I have the revolver my hand starts to tremble. I press it against the ground and then say over to myself: Jerk the revolver up, fire before he has a chance to grab, and then jump up. Slowly I take a deep breath and become calmer. Then I hold my breath, whip up the revolver, it cracks, the dog leaps howling to one side, I make for the door of the shed and fall head over heels over one of the damned geese. At full speed I seize it again, and with a swing toss it over the wall and clamber up. No sooner am I on top than the dog is up again as lively as ever and springs at me. Quickly I let myself drop. Ten paces away stands Kat with the goose under his arm. As soon as he sees me we run. At last we can take a breather. The goose is dead, Kat saw to that in a moment. We intend to roast it, without telling anybody. I fetch a stove and wood from the hut and we crawl into a small deserted lean-to which we use for such purposes. The single window space is heavily curtained. There is a sort of hearth, an iron plate set on some bricks. We kindle a fire. Kat plucks and cleans the goose. We put the feathers carefully to one side. We intend to make two cushions out of them with the inscription: "Sleep soft under shell fire."<|quote|>The sound of the gun-fire from the front penetrates into our refuge. The glow of the fire lights up our faces, shadows dance on the wall. Sometimes a heavy crash and the hut shivers. Aeroplane bombs. Once we hear a stifled cry. A hut must have been hit. Aeroplanes drone; the tack-tack of machine guns breaks out. But no light that could be observed shows from us. We sit opposite one another, Kat and I, two soldiers in shabby coats, cooking a goose in the middle of the night. We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have. We are two men, two minute sparks of life; outside is the night and the circle of death. We sit on the edge of it crouching in danger, the grease drips from our hands, in our hearts we are close to one another, and the hour is like the room: flecked over with the lights and shadows of our feelings cast by a quiet fire. What does he know of me or I of him? formerly we should not have had a single thought in common--now we sit with a goose between us and feel in unison, and are so intimate that we do not even speak. It takes a long time to roast a goose, even when it is young and fat. So we take turns. One bastes it while the other lies down and sleeps. A grand smell gradually fills the hut. The noises without increase in volume, pass into my dream and yet linger in my memory. In a half sleep I watch Kat dip and raise the ladle. I love him, his shoulders, his angular, stooping figure--and at the same time I see behind him woods and stars, and a clear voice utters words that bring me peace, to me, a soldier in big boots, belt, and knapsack, taking the road that lies before him under the high heaven, quickly forgetting and seldom sorrowful, for ever pressing on under the wide night sky. A little soldier and a clear voice, and if anyone were to caress him he would hardly understand, this soldier with the big boots and shut heart, who marches because he is wearing big boots, and has forgotten all else but marching. Beyond the sky-line is a country with flowers, lying so still that he would like to weep. There are sights there that he has not forgotten, because he never possessed them--perplexing, yet lost to him. Are not his twenty summers there? Is my face wet, and where am I? Kat stands before me, his gigantic, stooping shadow falls upon me like home. He speaks gently, he smiles and goes back to the fire. Then he says:</|quote|>"It's done." "Yes, Kat." I stir myself. In the middle of the room shines the brown goose. We take out our collapsible forks and our pocket-knives and each cuts off a leg. With it we have army bread dipped in gravy. We eat slowly and with gusto. "How does it taste, Kat?" "Good! And yours?" "Good, Kat." We are brothers and press on one another the choicest pieces. Afterwards I smoke a cigarette and Kat a cigar. There is still a lot left. "How would it be, Kat, if we took a bit to Kropp and Tjaden?" "Sure," says he. We carve off a portion and wrap it up carefully in newspaper. The rest we thought of taking over to the hut. Kat laughs, and simply says: "Tjaden." I agree, we will have to take it all. So we go off to the fowl-house to wake them. But first we pack away the feathers. Kropp and Tjaden take us for magicians. Then they get busy with their teeth. Tjaden holds a wing in his mouth with both hands like a mouth-organ, and gnaws. He drinks the gravy from the pot and smacks his lips: "May I never forget you!" We go to our hut. Again there is the lofty sky with the stars and the oncoming dawn, and I pass on beneath it, a soldier with big boots and a full belly, a little soldier in the early morning--but by my side, stooping and angular, goes Kat, my comrade. The outlines of the huts are upon us in the dawn like a dark, deep sleep. CHAPTER VI There are rumours of an offensive. We go up to the front two days earlier than usual. On the way we pass a shelled school-house. Stacked up against its longer side is a high double wall of yellow, unpolished, brand-new coffins. They still smell of fir, and pine, and the forest. There are at least a hundred. "That's a good preparation for the offensive," says Müller astonished. "They're for us," growls Detering. "Don't talk rot," says Kat to him angrily. "You be thankful if you get so much as a coffin," grins Tjaden, "they'll slip you a water-proof sheet for your old Aunt Sally of a carcase." The others jest too, unpleasant jests, but what else can a man do?--The coffins are really for us. The organization surpasses itself in that kind of thing. Ahead of us everything is simmering. The first night we try to get our bearings. When it is fairly quiet we | All Quiet on the Western Front |
"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me." | Tjaden | thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most | do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp. Tjaden thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most to have him in a | the care-free evening hours in the ale-house---- He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls: "What silly questions you do ask." He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic. "What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp. Tjaden thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into him with a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: "If I were in your place I'd see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you could grind him till the water in his | a bobby." "You'll never be a non-com. though, Haie," interrupts Kat. Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still linger over the clear evenings in autumn, the Sundays in the heather, the village bells, the afternoons and evenings with the servant girls, the fried bacon and barley, the care-free evening hours in the ale-house---- He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls: "What silly questions you do ask." He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic. "What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp. Tjaden thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into him with a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: "If I were in your place I'd see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you could grind him till the water in his backside boils." "And you, Detering?" asks Müller like an inquisitor. He's a born schoolmaster with all his questions. Detering is sparing with his words. But on this subject he speaks. He looks at the sky and says only the one sentence: "I would go straight on with the harvesting." Then | a row; you've a bed, every week clean under-wear like a perfect gent, you do your non-com.'s duty, you have a good suit of clothes; in the evening you're a free man and go off to the pub." Haie is extraordinarily set on his idea. He's in love with it. "And when your twelve years are up you get your pension and become a village bobby, and you can walk about the whole day." He's already sweating on it. "And just you think how you'd be treated. Here a dram, there a pint. Everybody wants to be well in with a bobby." "You'll never be a non-com. though, Haie," interrupts Kat. Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still linger over the clear evenings in autumn, the Sundays in the heather, the village bells, the afternoons and evenings with the servant girls, the fried bacon and barley, the care-free evening hours in the ale-house---- He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls: "What silly questions you do ask." He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic. "What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp. Tjaden thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into him with a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: "If I were in your place I'd see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you could grind him till the water in his backside boils." "And you, Detering?" asks Müller like an inquisitor. He's a born schoolmaster with all his questions. Detering is sparing with his words. But on this subject he speaks. He looks at the sky and says only the one sentence: "I would go straight on with the harvesting." Then he gets up and walks off. He is worried. His wife has to look after the farm. They've already taken away two of his horses. Every day he reads the papers that come, to see whether it is raining in his little corner of Oldenburg. They haven't brought the hay in yet. At this moment Himmelstoss appears. He comes straight up to our group. Tjaden's face turns red. He stretches his length on the grass and shuts his eyes in embarrassment. Himmelstoss is a little hesitant, his gait becomes slower. Then he marches up to us. No one makes any | feather-bed with a spring mattress; I wouldn't put trousers on again for a week." Everyone is silent. The picture is too good. Our flesh creeps. At last Müller pulls himself together and says: "And then what?" A pause. Then Haie explains rather awkwardly: "If I were a non-com. I'd stay with the Prussians and serve out my time." "Haie, you've got a screw loose, surely!" I say. "Have you ever dug peat?" he retorts good-naturedly. "You try it." Then he pulls a spoon out of the top of his boot and reaches over into Kropp's mess-tin. "It can't be worse than digging trenches," I venture. Haie chews and grins: "It lasts longer though. And there's no getting out of it either." "But, man, surely it's better at home." "Some ways," says he, and with open mouth sinks into a day-dream. You can see what he is thinking. There is the mean little hut on the moors, the hard work on the heath from morning till night in the heat, the miserable pay, the dirty labourer's clothes. "In the army in peace time you've nothing to trouble about," he goes on, "your food's found every day, or else you kick up a row; you've a bed, every week clean under-wear like a perfect gent, you do your non-com.'s duty, you have a good suit of clothes; in the evening you're a free man and go off to the pub." Haie is extraordinarily set on his idea. He's in love with it. "And when your twelve years are up you get your pension and become a village bobby, and you can walk about the whole day." He's already sweating on it. "And just you think how you'd be treated. Here a dram, there a pint. Everybody wants to be well in with a bobby." "You'll never be a non-com. though, Haie," interrupts Kat. Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still linger over the clear evenings in autumn, the Sundays in the heather, the village bells, the afternoons and evenings with the servant girls, the fried bacon and barley, the care-free evening hours in the ale-house---- He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls: "What silly questions you do ask." He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic. "What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp. Tjaden thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into him with a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: "If I were in your place I'd see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you could grind him till the water in his backside boils." "And you, Detering?" asks Müller like an inquisitor. He's a born schoolmaster with all his questions. Detering is sparing with his words. But on this subject he speaks. He looks at the sky and says only the one sentence: "I would go straight on with the harvesting." Then he gets up and walks off. He is worried. His wife has to look after the farm. They've already taken away two of his horses. Every day he reads the papers that come, to see whether it is raining in his little corner of Oldenburg. They haven't brought the hay in yet. At this moment Himmelstoss appears. He comes straight up to our group. Tjaden's face turns red. He stretches his length on the grass and shuts his eyes in embarrassment. Himmelstoss is a little hesitant, his gait becomes slower. Then he marches up to us. No one makes any motion to stand up. Kropp looks up at him with interest. He continues to stand in front of us and wait. As no one says anything he launches a "Well?" A couple of seconds go by. Apparently Himmelstoss doesn't quite know what to do. He would like most to set us all on the run again. But he seems to have learned already that the front line isn't a parade ground. He tries it on though, and by addressing himself to one instead of to all of us hopes to get some response. Kropp is nearest, so he favours him. "Well, you here too?" But Albert's no friend of his. "A bit longer than you, I fancy," he retorts. The red moustache twitches: "You don't recognize me any more, what?" Tjaden now opens his eyes. "I do though." Himmelstoss turns to him: "Tjaden, isn't it?" Tjaden lifts his head. "And do you know what you are?" Himmelstoss is disconcerted. "Since when have we become so familiar? I don't remember that we ever slept in the gutter together?" He has no idea what to make of the situation. He didn't expect this open hostility. But he is on his guard: someone | him the son of the local magistrate was watching. That cooked his goose. He will meet some surprises here. Tjaden has been meditating for hours what to say to him. Haie gazes thoughtfully at his great paws and winks at me. The thrashing was the high water mark of his life. He tells me he often dreams of it. Kropp and Müller are amusing themselves. From somewhere or other, probably the pioneer-cook-house, Kropp has bagged for himself a mess-tin full of beans. Müller squints hungrily into it but checks himself and says: "Albert, what would you do if it were suddenly peace-time again?" "There won't be any civil life," says Albert bluntly. "Well, but if--" persists Müller, "what would you do?" "Clear out of this!" growls Kropp. "Of course. And then what?" "Get drunk," says Albert. "Don't talk rot, I mean seriously----" "So do I," says Kropp, "what else should a man do?" Kat becomes interested. He levies tribute on Kropp's tin of beans, swallows some, then considers for a while and says: "You might get drunk first, of course, but then you'd take the next train for home and mother. Peace-time, man, Albert----" He fumbles in his oil-cloth pocket-book for a photograph and suddenly shows it all round. "My old people!" Then he puts it back and swears: "Damned lousy war----" "It's all very well for you to talk," I tell him. "You've a wife and children." "True," he nods, "and I have to see to it that they've something to eat." We laugh. "They won't lack for that, Kat, you'd scrounge it from somewhere." Müller is insatiable and gives himself no peace. He wakes Haie Westhus out of his dream. "Haie, what would you do if it was peace time?" "Give you a kick in the backside for the way you talk," I say. "How does it come about exactly?" "How does the cow-shit come on the roof?" retorts Müller laconically, and turns to Haie Westhus again. It is too much for Haie. He shakes his freckled head: "You mean when the war's over?" "Exactly. You've said it." "Well, there'd be women of course, eh?" --Haie licks his lips. "Sure." "By Jove yes," says Haie, his face melting, "then I'd grab some good buxom dame, some real kitchen wench with plenty to get hold of, you know, and jump straight into bed. Just you think, boys, a real feather-bed with a spring mattress; I wouldn't put trousers on again for a week." Everyone is silent. The picture is too good. Our flesh creeps. At last Müller pulls himself together and says: "And then what?" A pause. Then Haie explains rather awkwardly: "If I were a non-com. I'd stay with the Prussians and serve out my time." "Haie, you've got a screw loose, surely!" I say. "Have you ever dug peat?" he retorts good-naturedly. "You try it." Then he pulls a spoon out of the top of his boot and reaches over into Kropp's mess-tin. "It can't be worse than digging trenches," I venture. Haie chews and grins: "It lasts longer though. And there's no getting out of it either." "But, man, surely it's better at home." "Some ways," says he, and with open mouth sinks into a day-dream. You can see what he is thinking. There is the mean little hut on the moors, the hard work on the heath from morning till night in the heat, the miserable pay, the dirty labourer's clothes. "In the army in peace time you've nothing to trouble about," he goes on, "your food's found every day, or else you kick up a row; you've a bed, every week clean under-wear like a perfect gent, you do your non-com.'s duty, you have a good suit of clothes; in the evening you're a free man and go off to the pub." Haie is extraordinarily set on his idea. He's in love with it. "And when your twelve years are up you get your pension and become a village bobby, and you can walk about the whole day." He's already sweating on it. "And just you think how you'd be treated. Here a dram, there a pint. Everybody wants to be well in with a bobby." "You'll never be a non-com. though, Haie," interrupts Kat. Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still linger over the clear evenings in autumn, the Sundays in the heather, the village bells, the afternoons and evenings with the servant girls, the fried bacon and barley, the care-free evening hours in the ale-house---- He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls: "What silly questions you do ask." He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic. "What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp. Tjaden thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into him with a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: "If I were in your place I'd see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you could grind him till the water in his backside boils." "And you, Detering?" asks Müller like an inquisitor. He's a born schoolmaster with all his questions. Detering is sparing with his words. But on this subject he speaks. He looks at the sky and says only the one sentence: "I would go straight on with the harvesting." Then he gets up and walks off. He is worried. His wife has to look after the farm. They've already taken away two of his horses. Every day he reads the papers that come, to see whether it is raining in his little corner of Oldenburg. They haven't brought the hay in yet. At this moment Himmelstoss appears. He comes straight up to our group. Tjaden's face turns red. He stretches his length on the grass and shuts his eyes in embarrassment. Himmelstoss is a little hesitant, his gait becomes slower. Then he marches up to us. No one makes any motion to stand up. Kropp looks up at him with interest. He continues to stand in front of us and wait. As no one says anything he launches a "Well?" A couple of seconds go by. Apparently Himmelstoss doesn't quite know what to do. He would like most to set us all on the run again. But he seems to have learned already that the front line isn't a parade ground. He tries it on though, and by addressing himself to one instead of to all of us hopes to get some response. Kropp is nearest, so he favours him. "Well, you here too?" But Albert's no friend of his. "A bit longer than you, I fancy," he retorts. The red moustache twitches: "You don't recognize me any more, what?" Tjaden now opens his eyes. "I do though." Himmelstoss turns to him: "Tjaden, isn't it?" Tjaden lifts his head. "And do you know what you are?" Himmelstoss is disconcerted. "Since when have we become so familiar? I don't remember that we ever slept in the gutter together?" He has no idea what to make of the situation. He didn't expect this open hostility. But he is on his guard: someone has already dinned some rot into him about getting a shot in the back. The question about the gutter makes Tjaden so mad that he becomes almost witty: "No, you slept there by yourself." Himmelstoss begins to boil. But Tjaden gets in ahead of him. He must bring off his insult: "Wouldn't you like to know what you are? A dirty hound, that's what you are. I've been wanting to tell you that for a long time." The satisfaction of months shines in his dull pig's eyes as he spits out: Dirty hound! Himmelstoss lets fly too, now. "What's that, you muck-rake, you dirty peat-stealer? Stand up there, bring your heels together when your superior officer speaks to you." Tjaden winks solemnly. "You take a run and jump at yourself, Himmelstoss." Himmelstoss is a raging book of army regulations. The Kaiser couldn't be more insulted. "Tjaden, I command you, as your superior officer: Stand up!" "Anything else you would like?" asks Tjaden. "Will you obey my order or not?" Tjaden replies, without knowing it, in the well-known classical phrase. At the same time he ventilates his backside. "I'll have you court-martialled," storms Himmelstoss. We watch him disappear in the direction of the Orderly Room. Haie and Tjaden burst into a regular peat-digger's bellow. Haie laughs so much that he dislocates his jaw, and suddenly stands there helpless with his mouth wide open. Albert has to put it back again by giving it a blow with his fist. Kat is troubled: "If he reports you, it'll be pretty serious." "Do you think he will?" asks Tjaden. "Sure to," I say. "The least you'll get will be five days close arrest," says Kat. That doesn't worry Tjaden. "Five days clink are five days rest." "And if they send you to the Fortress?" urges the thoroughgoing Müller. "Well, for the time being the war will be over so far as I am concerned." Tjaden is a cheerful soul. There aren't any worries for him. He goes off with Haie and Leer so that they won't find him in the first flush of the excitement. * * Müller hasn't finished yet. He tackles Kropp again. "Albert, if you were really at home now, what would you do?" Kropp is contented now and more accommodating: "How many of us were there in the class exactly?" We count up: out of twenty, seven are dead, four | man, surely it's better at home." "Some ways," says he, and with open mouth sinks into a day-dream. You can see what he is thinking. There is the mean little hut on the moors, the hard work on the heath from morning till night in the heat, the miserable pay, the dirty labourer's clothes. "In the army in peace time you've nothing to trouble about," he goes on, "your food's found every day, or else you kick up a row; you've a bed, every week clean under-wear like a perfect gent, you do your non-com.'s duty, you have a good suit of clothes; in the evening you're a free man and go off to the pub." Haie is extraordinarily set on his idea. He's in love with it. "And when your twelve years are up you get your pension and become a village bobby, and you can walk about the whole day." He's already sweating on it. "And just you think how you'd be treated. Here a dram, there a pint. Everybody wants to be well in with a bobby." "You'll never be a non-com. though, Haie," interrupts Kat. Haie looks at him sadly and is silent. His thoughts still linger over the clear evenings in autumn, the Sundays in the heather, the village bells, the afternoons and evenings with the servant girls, the fried bacon and barley, the care-free evening hours in the ale-house---- He can't part with all these dreams so abruptly; he merely growls: "What silly questions you do ask." He pulls his shirt over his head and buttons up his tunic. "What would you do, Tjaden?" asks Kropp. Tjaden thinks only of one thing.<|quote|>"See to it that Himmelstoss doesn't get past me."</|quote|>Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into him with a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: "If I were in your place I'd see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you could grind him till the water in his backside boils." "And you, Detering?" asks Müller like an inquisitor. He's a born schoolmaster with all his questions. Detering is sparing with his words. But on this subject he speaks. He looks at the sky and says only the one sentence: "I would go straight on with the harvesting." Then he gets up and walks off. He is worried. His wife has to look after the farm. They've already taken away two of his horses. Every day he reads the papers that come, to see whether it is raining in his little corner of Oldenburg. They haven't brought the hay in yet. At this moment Himmelstoss appears. He comes straight up to our group. Tjaden's face turns red. He stretches his length on the grass and shuts his eyes in embarrassment. Himmelstoss is a little hesitant, his gait becomes slower. Then he marches up to us. No one makes any motion to stand up. Kropp looks up at him with interest. He continues to stand in front of us and wait. As no one says anything he launches a "Well?" A couple of seconds go by. Apparently Himmelstoss doesn't quite know what to do. He would like most to set us all on the run again. But he seems to have learned already that the front line isn't a parade ground. He tries it on though, and by addressing himself to one instead of to all of us hopes to get some response. Kropp is nearest, so he favours him. "Well, you here too?" But Albert's no | All Quiet on the Western Front |
she explained. | No speaker | in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live | it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live on." And for some reason | "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna. "No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live on." And for some reason every one sighed. "And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to his daughter. The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both | of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, said hardly audibly: "Yes ... truly...." One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band was playing and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listening to "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna. "No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live on." And for some reason every one sighed. "And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to his daughter. The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with | the yard, it was difficult to grasp that the frost was intense, and that the setting sun was lighting with its chilly rays a solitary wayfarer on the snowy plain. Vera Iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess founded a school, a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in love with a wandering artist; she read of what never happens in real life, and yet it was pleasant to listen--it was comfortable, and such agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one had no desire to get up. "Not badsome ..." Ivan Petrovitch said softly. And one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, said hardly audibly: "Yes ... truly...." One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band was playing and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listening to "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna. "No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live on." And for some reason every one sighed. "And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to his daughter. The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with the din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture.... Ekaterina Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hill and going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping; and at the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violent exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over her forehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at Dyalizh among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watch this young, elegant, and, in | it aloud to-day." "Petit Jean," said Vera Iosifovna to her husband, "dites que l'on nous donne du thé." Startsev was introduced to Ekaterina Ivanovna, a girl of eighteen, very much like her mother, thin and pretty. Her expression was still childish and her figure was soft and slim; and her developed girlish bosom, healthy and beautiful, was suggestive of spring, real spring. Then they drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats, and with very nice cakes, which melted in the mouth. As the evening came on, other visitors gradually arrived, and Ivan Petrovitch fixed his laughing eyes on each of them and said: "How do you do, if you please?" Then they all sat down in the drawing-room with very serious faces, and Vera Iosifovna read her novel. It began like this: "The frost was intense...." The windows were wide open; from the kitchen came the clatter of knives and the smell of fried onions.... It was comfortable in the soft deep arm-chair; the lights had such a friendly twinkle in the twilight of the drawing-room, and at the moment on a summer evening when sounds of voices and laughter floated in from the street and whiffs of lilac from the yard, it was difficult to grasp that the frost was intense, and that the setting sun was lighting with its chilly rays a solitary wayfarer on the snowy plain. Vera Iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess founded a school, a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in love with a wandering artist; she read of what never happens in real life, and yet it was pleasant to listen--it was comfortable, and such agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one had no desire to get up. "Not badsome ..." Ivan Petrovitch said softly. And one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, said hardly audibly: "Yes ... truly...." One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band was playing and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listening to "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna. "No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live on." And for some reason every one sighed. "And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to his daughter. The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with the din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture.... Ekaterina Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hill and going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping; and at the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violent exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over her forehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at Dyalizh among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watch this young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure creature, and to listen to these noisy, tedious but still cultured sounds, was so pleasant, so novel.... "Well, Kitten, you have never played that before," said Ivan Petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stood up. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything better." All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and she listened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure was expressive of triumph. "Splendid, superb!" "Splendid," said Startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm. "Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. "At the Conservatoire?" "No, I am only preparing for the Conservatoire, and till now have been working with Madame Zavlovsky." "Have you finished at the high school here?" "Oh, no," Vera Iosifovna answered for her, "We have teachers for her at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or a boarding school, you know. While a young girl is growing up, she ought to be under no influence but her mother's." "All the same, I'm going to the Conservatoire," said Ekaterina Ivanovna. "No. Kitten loves her mamma. Kitten won't grieve | talent. The Turkins welcomed visitors, and good-humouredly displayed their talents with genuine simplicity. Their stone house was roomy and cool in summer; half of the windows looked into a shady old garden, where nightingales used to sing in the spring. When there were visitors in the house, there was a clatter of knives in the kitchen and a smell of fried onions in the yard--and that was always a sure sign of a plentiful and savoury supper to follow. And as soon as Dmitri Ionitch Startsev was appointed the district doctor, and took up his abode at Dyalizh, six miles from S----, he, too, was told that as a cultivated man it was essential for him to make the acquaintance of the Turkins. In the winter he was introduced to Ivan Petrovitch in the street; they talked about the weather, about the theatre, about the cholera; an invitation followed. On a holiday in the spring--it was Ascension Day--after seeing his patients, Startsev set off for town in search of a little recreation and to make some purchases. He walked in a leisurely way (he had not yet set up his carriage), humming all the time: "'Before I'd drunk the tears from life's goblet....'" In town he dined, went for a walk in the gardens, then Ivan Petrovitch's invitation came into his mind, as it were of itself, and he decided to call on the Turkins and see what sort of people they were. "How do you do, if you please?" said Ivan Petrovitch, meeting him on the steps. "Delighted, delighted to see such an agreeable visitor. Come along; I will introduce you to my better half. I tell him, Verotchka," he went on, as he presented the doctor to his wife-- "I tell him that he has no human right to sit at home in a hospital; he ought to devote his leisure to society. Oughtn't he, darling?" "Sit here," said Vera Iosifovna, making her visitor sit down beside her. "You can dance attendance on me. My husband is jealous--he is an Othello; but we will try and behave so well that he will notice nothing." "Ah, you spoilt chicken!" Ivan Petrovitch muttered tenderly, and he kissed her on the forehead. "You have come just in the nick of time," he said, addressing the doctor again. "My better half has written a 'hugeous' novel, and she is going to read it aloud to-day." "Petit Jean," said Vera Iosifovna to her husband, "dites que l'on nous donne du thé." Startsev was introduced to Ekaterina Ivanovna, a girl of eighteen, very much like her mother, thin and pretty. Her expression was still childish and her figure was soft and slim; and her developed girlish bosom, healthy and beautiful, was suggestive of spring, real spring. Then they drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats, and with very nice cakes, which melted in the mouth. As the evening came on, other visitors gradually arrived, and Ivan Petrovitch fixed his laughing eyes on each of them and said: "How do you do, if you please?" Then they all sat down in the drawing-room with very serious faces, and Vera Iosifovna read her novel. It began like this: "The frost was intense...." The windows were wide open; from the kitchen came the clatter of knives and the smell of fried onions.... It was comfortable in the soft deep arm-chair; the lights had such a friendly twinkle in the twilight of the drawing-room, and at the moment on a summer evening when sounds of voices and laughter floated in from the street and whiffs of lilac from the yard, it was difficult to grasp that the frost was intense, and that the setting sun was lighting with its chilly rays a solitary wayfarer on the snowy plain. Vera Iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess founded a school, a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in love with a wandering artist; she read of what never happens in real life, and yet it was pleasant to listen--it was comfortable, and such agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one had no desire to get up. "Not badsome ..." Ivan Petrovitch said softly. And one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, said hardly audibly: "Yes ... truly...." One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band was playing and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listening to "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna. "No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live on." And for some reason every one sighed. "And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to his daughter. The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with the din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture.... Ekaterina Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hill and going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping; and at the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violent exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over her forehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at Dyalizh among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watch this young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure creature, and to listen to these noisy, tedious but still cultured sounds, was so pleasant, so novel.... "Well, Kitten, you have never played that before," said Ivan Petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stood up. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything better." All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and she listened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure was expressive of triumph. "Splendid, superb!" "Splendid," said Startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm. "Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. "At the Conservatoire?" "No, I am only preparing for the Conservatoire, and till now have been working with Madame Zavlovsky." "Have you finished at the high school here?" "Oh, no," Vera Iosifovna answered for her, "We have teachers for her at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or a boarding school, you know. While a young girl is growing up, she ought to be under no influence but her mother's." "All the same, I'm going to the Conservatoire," said Ekaterina Ivanovna. "No. Kitten loves her mamma. Kitten won't grieve papa and mamma." "No, I'm going, I'm going," said Ekaterina Ivanovna, with playful caprice and stamping her foot. And at supper it was Ivan Petrovitch who displayed his talents. Laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "Badsome," "Hugeous," "Thank you most dumbly," and so on. But that was not all. When the guests, replete and satisfied, trooped into the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there bustled about them the footman Pavlusha, or, as he was called in the family, Pava--a lad of fourteen with shaven head and chubby cheeks. "Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him. Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic tone: "Unhappy woman, die!" And every one roared with laughter. "It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the street. He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty. "Not badsome," he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the town. Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. All the doctors of the town had been at the Turkins'; at last it was the district doctor's turn. Vera Iosifovna wrote him a touching letter in which she begged him to come and relieve her sufferings. Startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the Turkins'.... He really did something for Vera Iosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he was a | nothing." "Ah, you spoilt chicken!" Ivan Petrovitch muttered tenderly, and he kissed her on the forehead. "You have come just in the nick of time," he said, addressing the doctor again. "My better half has written a 'hugeous' novel, and she is going to read it aloud to-day." "Petit Jean," said Vera Iosifovna to her husband, "dites que l'on nous donne du thé." Startsev was introduced to Ekaterina Ivanovna, a girl of eighteen, very much like her mother, thin and pretty. Her expression was still childish and her figure was soft and slim; and her developed girlish bosom, healthy and beautiful, was suggestive of spring, real spring. Then they drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats, and with very nice cakes, which melted in the mouth. As the evening came on, other visitors gradually arrived, and Ivan Petrovitch fixed his laughing eyes on each of them and said: "How do you do, if you please?" Then they all sat down in the drawing-room with very serious faces, and Vera Iosifovna read her novel. It began like this: "The frost was intense...." The windows were wide open; from the kitchen came the clatter of knives and the smell of fried onions.... It was comfortable in the soft deep arm-chair; the lights had such a friendly twinkle in the twilight of the drawing-room, and at the moment on a summer evening when sounds of voices and laughter floated in from the street and whiffs of lilac from the yard, it was difficult to grasp that the frost was intense, and that the setting sun was lighting with its chilly rays a solitary wayfarer on the snowy plain. Vera Iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess founded a school, a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in love with a wandering artist; she read of what never happens in real life, and yet it was pleasant to listen--it was comfortable, and such agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one had no desire to get up. "Not badsome ..." Ivan Petrovitch said softly. And one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, said hardly audibly: "Yes ... truly...." One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band was playing and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listening to "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna. "No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?"<|quote|>she explained.</|quote|>"We have enough to live on." And for some reason every one sighed. "And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to his daughter. The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with the din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture.... Ekaterina Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hill and going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping; and at the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violent exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over her forehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at Dyalizh among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watch this young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure creature, and to listen to these noisy, tedious but still cultured sounds, was so pleasant, so novel.... "Well, Kitten, you have | The Lady and the Dog and Other Stories (4) |
The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned. | No speaker | "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried | the man, shaking his head. "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried Fagin. "Softly, but not so | on. Now, now, now!" "Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?" inquired the turnkey. "No other question," replied Mr. Brownlow. "If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position" "Nothing will do that, sir," replied the man, shaking his head. "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried Fagin. "Softly, but not so slow. Faster, faster!" The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive | you take me so. Now then, now then!" "Oh! God forgive this wretched man!" cried the boy with a burst of tears. "That's right, that's right," said Fagin. "That'll help us on. This door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don't you mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!" "Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?" inquired the turnkey. "No other question," replied Mr. Brownlow. "If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position" "Nothing will do that, sir," replied the man, shaking his head. "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried Fagin. "Softly, but not so slow. Faster, faster!" The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard. It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not the strength to walk. Day was dawning when they | papers," said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, "are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I want to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you." "Yes, yes," returned Oliver. "Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till morning." "Outside, outside," replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards the door, and looking vacantly over his head. "Say I've gone to sleep they'll believe you. You can get me out, if you take me so. Now then, now then!" "Oh! God forgive this wretched man!" cried the boy with a burst of tears. "That's right, that's right," said Fagin. "That'll help us on. This door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don't you mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!" "Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?" inquired the turnkey. "No other question," replied Mr. Brownlow. "If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position" "Nothing will do that, sir," replied the man, shaking his head. "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried Fagin. "Softly, but not so slow. Faster, faster!" The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard. It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not the strength to walk. Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death. CHAPTER LIII. AND LAST The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed. The little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few and simple words. Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and | man?" "I shan't be one long," he replied, looking up with a face retaining no human expression but rage and terror. "Strike them all dead! What right have they to butcher me?" As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow. Shrinking to the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted there. "Steady," said the turnkey, still holding him down. "Now, sir, tell him what you want. Quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time gets on." "You have some papers," said Mr. Brownlow advancing, "which were placed in your hands, for better security, by a man called Monks." "It's all a lie together," replied Fagin. "I haven't one not one." "For the love of God," said Mr. Brownlow solemnly, "do not say that now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. You know that Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of any further gain. Where are those papers?" "Oliver," cried Fagin, beckoning to him. "Here, here! Let me whisper to you." "I am not afraid," said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr. Brownlow's hand. "The papers," said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, "are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I want to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you." "Yes, yes," returned Oliver. "Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till morning." "Outside, outside," replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards the door, and looking vacantly over his head. "Say I've gone to sleep they'll believe you. You can get me out, if you take me so. Now then, now then!" "Oh! God forgive this wretched man!" cried the boy with a burst of tears. "That's right, that's right," said Fagin. "That'll help us on. This door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don't you mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!" "Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?" inquired the turnkey. "No other question," replied Mr. Brownlow. "If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position" "Nothing will do that, sir," replied the man, shaking his head. "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried Fagin. "Softly, but not so slow. Faster, faster!" The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard. It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not the strength to walk. Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death. CHAPTER LIII. AND LAST The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed. The little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few and simple words. Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry Maylie were married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of the young clergyman's labours; on the same day they entered into possession of their new and happy home. Mrs. Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity that age and worth can know the contemplation of the happiness of those on whom the warmest affections and tenderest cares of a well-spent life, have been unceasingly bestowed. It appeared, on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck of property remaining in the custody of Monks (which had never prospered either in his hands or in those of his mother) were equally divided between himself and Oliver, it would yield, to each, little more than three thousand pounds. By the provisions of his father's will, Oliver would have been entitled to the whole; but Mr. Brownlow, unwilling to deprive the elder son of the opportunity of retrieving his former vices and pursuing an honest career, proposed this mode of distribution, to which his young charge joyfully acceded. Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his portion to a distant part | were making some preparations in profound silence "this is the place he passes through. If you step this way, you can see the door he goes out at." He led them into a stone kitchen, fitted with coppers for dressing the prison food, and pointed to a door. There was an open grating above it, through which came the sound of men's voices, mingled with the noise of hammering, and the throwing down of boards. They were putting up the scaffold. From this place, they passed through several strong gates, opened by other turnkeys from the inner side; and, having entered an open yard, ascended a flight of narrow steps, and came into a passage with a row of strong doors on the left hand. Motioning them to remain where they were, the turnkey knocked at one of these with his bunch of keys. The two attendants, after a little whispering, came out into the passage, stretching themselves as if glad of the temporary relief, and motioned the visitors to follow the jailer into the cell. They did so. The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man. His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence otherwise than as a part of his vision. "Good boy, Charley well done" he mumbled. "Oliver, too, ha! ha! ha! Oliver too quite the gentleman now quite the take that boy away to bed!" The jailer took the disengaged hand of Oliver; and, whispering him not to be alarmed, looked on without speaking. "Take him away to bed!" cried Fagin. "Do you hear me, some of you? He has been the the somehow the cause of all this. It's worth the money to bring him up to it Bolter's throat, Bill; never mind the girl Bolter's throat as deep as you can cut. Saw his head off!" "Fagin," said the jailer. "That's me!" cried the Jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of listening he had assumed upon his trial. "An old man, my Lord; a very old, old man!" "Here," said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him down. "Here's somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, I suppose. Fagin, Fagin! Are you a man?" "I shan't be one long," he replied, looking up with a face retaining no human expression but rage and terror. "Strike them all dead! What right have they to butcher me?" As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow. Shrinking to the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted there. "Steady," said the turnkey, still holding him down. "Now, sir, tell him what you want. Quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time gets on." "You have some papers," said Mr. Brownlow advancing, "which were placed in your hands, for better security, by a man called Monks." "It's all a lie together," replied Fagin. "I haven't one not one." "For the love of God," said Mr. Brownlow solemnly, "do not say that now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. You know that Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of any further gain. Where are those papers?" "Oliver," cried Fagin, beckoning to him. "Here, here! Let me whisper to you." "I am not afraid," said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr. Brownlow's hand. "The papers," said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, "are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I want to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you." "Yes, yes," returned Oliver. "Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till morning." "Outside, outside," replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards the door, and looking vacantly over his head. "Say I've gone to sleep they'll believe you. You can get me out, if you take me so. Now then, now then!" "Oh! God forgive this wretched man!" cried the boy with a burst of tears. "That's right, that's right," said Fagin. "That'll help us on. This door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don't you mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!" "Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?" inquired the turnkey. "No other question," replied Mr. Brownlow. "If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position" "Nothing will do that, sir," replied the man, shaking his head. "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried Fagin. "Softly, but not so slow. Faster, faster!" The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard. It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not the strength to walk. Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death. CHAPTER LIII. AND LAST The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed. The little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few and simple words. Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry Maylie were married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of the young clergyman's labours; on the same day they entered into possession of their new and happy home. Mrs. Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity that age and worth can know the contemplation of the happiness of those on whom the warmest affections and tenderest cares of a well-spent life, have been unceasingly bestowed. It appeared, on full and careful investigation, that if the wreck of property remaining in the custody of Monks (which had never prospered either in his hands or in those of his mother) were equally divided between himself and Oliver, it would yield, to each, little more than three thousand pounds. By the provisions of his father's will, Oliver would have been entitled to the whole; but Mr. Brownlow, unwilling to deprive the elder son of the opportunity of retrieving his former vices and pursuing an honest career, proposed this mode of distribution, to which his young charge joyfully acceded. Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with his portion to a distant part of the New World; where, having quickly squandered it, he once more fell into his old courses, and, after undergoing a long confinement for some fresh act of fraud and knavery, at length sunk under an attack of his old disorder, and died in prison. As far from home, died the chief remaining members of his friend Fagin's gang. Mr. Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son. Removing with him and the old housekeeper to within a mile of the parsonage-house, where his dear friends resided, he gratified the only remaining wish of Oliver's warm and earnest heart, and thus linked together a little society, whose condition approached as nearly to one of perfect happiness as can ever be known in this changing world. Soon after the marriage of the young people, the worthy doctor returned to Chertsey, where, bereft of the presence of his old friends, he would have been discontented if his temperament had admitted of such a feeling; and would have turned quite peevish if he had known how. For two or three months, he contented himself with hinting that he feared the air began to disagree with him; then, finding that the place really no longer was, to him, what it had been, he settled his business on his assistant, took a bachelor's cottage outside the village of which his young friend was pastor, and instantaneously recovered. Here he took to gardening, planting, fishing, carpentering, and various other pursuits of a similar kind: all undertaken with his characteristic impetuosity. In each and all he has since become famous throughout the neighborhood, as a most profound authority. Before his removal, he had managed to contract a strong friendship for Mr. Grimwig, which that eccentric gentleman cordially reciprocated. He is accordingly visited by Mr. Grimwig a great many times in the course of the year. On all such occasions, Mr. Grimwig plants, fishes, and carpenters, with great ardour; doing everything in a very singular and unprecedented manner, but always maintaining with his favourite asseveration, that his mode is the right one. On Sundays, he never fails to criticise the sermon to the young clergyman's face: always informing Mr. Losberne, in strict confidence afterwards, that he considers it an excellent performance, but deems it as well not to say so. It is a standing and very favourite joke, for Mr. Brownlow to rally him on his old prophecy concerning Oliver, | hear me, some of you? He has been the the somehow the cause of all this. It's worth the money to bring him up to it Bolter's throat, Bill; never mind the girl Bolter's throat as deep as you can cut. Saw his head off!" "Fagin," said the jailer. "That's me!" cried the Jew, falling instantly, into the attitude of listening he had assumed upon his trial. "An old man, my Lord; a very old, old man!" "Here," said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him down. "Here's somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, I suppose. Fagin, Fagin! Are you a man?" "I shan't be one long," he replied, looking up with a face retaining no human expression but rage and terror. "Strike them all dead! What right have they to butcher me?" As he spoke he caught sight of Oliver and Mr. Brownlow. Shrinking to the furthest corner of the seat, he demanded to know what they wanted there. "Steady," said the turnkey, still holding him down. "Now, sir, tell him what you want. Quick, if you please, for he grows worse as the time gets on." "You have some papers," said Mr. Brownlow advancing, "which were placed in your hands, for better security, by a man called Monks." "It's all a lie together," replied Fagin. "I haven't one not one." "For the love of God," said Mr. Brownlow solemnly, "do not say that now, upon the very verge of death; but tell me where they are. You know that Sikes is dead; that Monks has confessed; that there is no hope of any further gain. Where are those papers?" "Oliver," cried Fagin, beckoning to him. "Here, here! Let me whisper to you." "I am not afraid," said Oliver in a low voice, as he relinquished Mr. Brownlow's hand. "The papers," said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, "are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front-room. I want to talk to you, my dear. I want to talk to you." "Yes, yes," returned Oliver. "Let me say a prayer. Do! Let me say one prayer. Say only one, upon your knees, with me, and we will talk till morning." "Outside, outside," replied Fagin, pushing the boy before him towards the door, and looking vacantly over his head. "Say I've gone to sleep they'll believe you. You can get me out, if you take me so. Now then, now then!" "Oh! God forgive this wretched man!" cried the boy with a burst of tears. "That's right, that's right," said Fagin. "That'll help us on. This door first. If I shake and tremble, as we pass the gallows, don't you mind, but hurry on. Now, now, now!" "Have you nothing else to ask him, sir?" inquired the turnkey. "No other question," replied Mr. Brownlow. "If I hoped we could recall him to a sense of his position" "Nothing will do that, sir," replied the man, shaking his head. "You had better leave him."<|quote|>The door of the cell opened, and the attendants returned.</|quote|>"Press on, press on," cried Fagin. "Softly, but not so slow. Faster, faster!" The men laid hands upon him, and disengaging Oliver from his grasp, held him back. He struggled with the power of desperation, for an instant; and then sent up cry upon cry that penetrated even those massive walls, and rang in their ears until they reached the open yard. It was some time before they left the prison. Oliver nearly swooned after this frightful scene, and was so weak that for an hour or more, he had not the strength to walk. Day was dawning when they again emerged. A great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people, smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd were pushing, quarrelling, joking. Everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the centre of all the black stage, the cross-beam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death. CHAPTER LIII. AND LAST The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed. The little that remains to their historian to relate, is told in few and simple words. Before three months had passed, Rose Fleming and Harry Maylie were married in the village church which was henceforth to be the scene of the young clergyman's labours; on the same day they entered into possession of their new and happy home. Mrs. Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to enjoy, during the tranquil remainder of her days, the greatest felicity that age and worth can know the contemplation of the happiness of those on whom the warmest affections and tenderest cares of | Oliver Twist |
I said. | No speaker | have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he | Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he didn't, so it was all | drunken one do?" "Nothing." "Is that why he drinks?" "No. He's waiting to marry this lady." "Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table. "What does he say?" "He's drunk." "Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he didn't, so it was all right. "Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants." "Pipe down, Mike." "Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants." "Pipe down." During this Romero was fingering his glass and | a writer." Romero was impressed. "This other one, too," I said, pointing at Cohn. "He looks like Villalta," Romero said, looking at Bill. "Rafael, doesn't he look like Villalta?" "I can't see it," the critic said. "Really," Romero said in Spanish. "He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?" "Nothing." "Is that why he drinks?" "No. He's waiting to marry this lady." "Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table. "What does he say?" "He's drunk." "Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he didn't, so it was all right. "Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants." "Pipe down, Mike." "Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants." "Pipe down." During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing. Bill was filling the glasses. "Tell him Brett wants to come into----" "Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ's sake!" Romero looked up smiling. "Pipe down! I know that," he said. Just then | He had very nice manners. I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking. "Tell him I think writing is lousy," Bill said. "Go on, tell him. Tell him I'm ashamed of being a writer." Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her. "Go on. Tell him!" Bill said. Romero looked up smiling. "This gentleman," I said, "is a writer." Romero was impressed. "This other one, too," I said, pointing at Cohn. "He looks like Villalta," Romero said, looking at Bill. "Rafael, doesn't he look like Villalta?" "I can't see it," the critic said. "Really," Romero said in Spanish. "He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?" "Nothing." "Is that why he drinks?" "No. He's waiting to marry this lady." "Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table. "What does he say?" "He's drunk." "Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he didn't, so it was all right. "Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants." "Pipe down, Mike." "Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants." "Pipe down." During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing. Bill was filling the glasses. "Tell him Brett wants to come into----" "Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ's sake!" Romero looked up smiling. "Pipe down! I know that," he said. Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod. Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast. "Let's all drink to--" he began. "Pedro Romero," I said. Everybody stood up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear that | much, but that so far it had been incomplete. "Wait till to-morrow, if a good one comes out." "Have you seen the bulls for to-morrow?" the critic asked me. "Yes. I saw them unloaded." Pedro Romero leaned forward. "What did you think of them?" "Very nice," I said. "About twenty-six arrobas. Very short horns. Haven't you seen them?" "Oh, yes," said Romero. "They won't weigh twenty-six arrobas," said the critic. "No," said Romero. "They've got bananas for horns," the critic said. "You call them bananas?" asked Romero. He turned to me and smiled. "_You_ wouldn't call them bananas?" "No," I said. "They're horns all right." "They're very short," said Pedro Romero. "Very, very short. Still, they aren't bananas." "I say, Jake," Brett called from the next table, "you _have_ deserted us." "Just temporarily," I said. "We're talking bulls." "You _are_ superior." "Tell him that bulls have no balls," Mike shouted. He was drunk. Romero looked at me inquiringly. "Drunk," I said. "Borracho! Muy borracho!" "You might introduce your friends," Brett said. She had not stopped looking at Pedro Romero. I asked them if they would like to have coffee with us. They both stood up. Romero's face was very brown. He had very nice manners. I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking. "Tell him I think writing is lousy," Bill said. "Go on, tell him. Tell him I'm ashamed of being a writer." Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her. "Go on. Tell him!" Bill said. Romero looked up smiling. "This gentleman," I said, "is a writer." Romero was impressed. "This other one, too," I said, pointing at Cohn. "He looks like Villalta," Romero said, looking at Bill. "Rafael, doesn't he look like Villalta?" "I can't see it," the critic said. "Really," Romero said in Spanish. "He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?" "Nothing." "Is that why he drinks?" "No. He's waiting to marry this lady." "Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table. "What does he say?" "He's drunk." "Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he didn't, so it was all right. "Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants." "Pipe down, Mike." "Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants." "Pipe down." During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing. Bill was filling the glasses. "Tell him Brett wants to come into----" "Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ's sake!" Romero looked up smiling. "Pipe down! I know that," he said. Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod. Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast. "Let's all drink to--" he began. "Pedro Romero," I said. Everybody stood up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear that that was not at all what he was going to drink to. But it went off all right, and Pedro Romero shook hands with every one and he and the critic went out together. "My God! he's a lovely boy," Brett said. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." "I started to tell him," Mike began. "And Jake kept interrupting me. Why do you interrupt me? Do you think you talk Spanish better than I do?" "Oh, shut up, Mike! Nobody interrupted you." "No, I'd like to get this settled." He turned away from me. "Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us? People who are out to have a good time? For God's sake don't be so noisy, Cohn!" "Oh, cut it out, Mike," Cohn said. "Do you think Brett wants you here? Do you think you add to the party? Why don't you say something?" "I said all I had to say the other night, Mike." "I'm not one of you literary chaps." Mike stood shakily and leaned against the table. "I'm not clever. But I do know when I'm | he said in English. He was very bashful about his English, but he was really very pleased with it, and as we went on talking he brought out words he was not sure of, and asked me about them. He was anxious to know the English for _Corrida de toros_, the exact translation. Bull-fight he was suspicious of. I explained that bull-fight in Spanish was the _lidia_ of a _toro_. The Spanish word _corrida_ means in English the running of bulls--the French translation is _Course de taureaux_. The critic put that in. There is no Spanish word for bull-fight. Pedro Romero said he had learned a little English in Gibraltar. He was born in Ronda. That is not far above Gibraltar. He started bull-fighting in Malaga in the bull-fighting school there. He had only been at it three years. The bull-fight critic joked him about the number of _Malague o_ expressions he used. He was nineteen years old, he said. His older brother was with him as a banderillero, but he did not live in this hotel. He lived in a smaller hotel with the other people who worked for Romero. He asked me how many times I had seen him in the ring. I told him only three. It was really only two, but I did not want to explain after I had made the mistake. "Where did you see me the other time? In Madrid?" "Yes," I lied. I had read the accounts of his two appearances in Madrid in the bull-fight papers, so I was all right. "The first or the second time?" "The first." "I was very bad," he said. "The second time I was better. You remember?" He turned to the critic. He was not at all embarrassed. He talked of his work as something altogether apart from himself. There was nothing conceited or braggartly about him. "I like it very much that you like my work," he said. "But you haven't seen it yet. To-morrow, if I get a good bull, I will try and show it to you." When he said this he smiled, anxious that neither the bull-fight critic nor I would think he was boasting. "I am anxious to see it," the critic said. "I would like to be convinced." "He doesn't like my work much." Romero turned to me. He was serious. The critic explained that he liked it very much, but that so far it had been incomplete. "Wait till to-morrow, if a good one comes out." "Have you seen the bulls for to-morrow?" the critic asked me. "Yes. I saw them unloaded." Pedro Romero leaned forward. "What did you think of them?" "Very nice," I said. "About twenty-six arrobas. Very short horns. Haven't you seen them?" "Oh, yes," said Romero. "They won't weigh twenty-six arrobas," said the critic. "No," said Romero. "They've got bananas for horns," the critic said. "You call them bananas?" asked Romero. He turned to me and smiled. "_You_ wouldn't call them bananas?" "No," I said. "They're horns all right." "They're very short," said Pedro Romero. "Very, very short. Still, they aren't bananas." "I say, Jake," Brett called from the next table, "you _have_ deserted us." "Just temporarily," I said. "We're talking bulls." "You _are_ superior." "Tell him that bulls have no balls," Mike shouted. He was drunk. Romero looked at me inquiringly. "Drunk," I said. "Borracho! Muy borracho!" "You might introduce your friends," Brett said. She had not stopped looking at Pedro Romero. I asked them if they would like to have coffee with us. They both stood up. Romero's face was very brown. He had very nice manners. I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking. "Tell him I think writing is lousy," Bill said. "Go on, tell him. Tell him I'm ashamed of being a writer." Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her. "Go on. Tell him!" Bill said. Romero looked up smiling. "This gentleman," I said, "is a writer." Romero was impressed. "This other one, too," I said, pointing at Cohn. "He looks like Villalta," Romero said, looking at Bill. "Rafael, doesn't he look like Villalta?" "I can't see it," the critic said. "Really," Romero said in Spanish. "He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?" "Nothing." "Is that why he drinks?" "No. He's waiting to marry this lady." "Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table. "What does he say?" "He's drunk." "Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he didn't, so it was all right. "Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants." "Pipe down, Mike." "Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants." "Pipe down." During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing. Bill was filling the glasses. "Tell him Brett wants to come into----" "Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ's sake!" Romero looked up smiling. "Pipe down! I know that," he said. Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod. Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast. "Let's all drink to--" he began. "Pedro Romero," I said. Everybody stood up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear that that was not at all what he was going to drink to. But it went off all right, and Pedro Romero shook hands with every one and he and the critic went out together. "My God! he's a lovely boy," Brett said. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." "I started to tell him," Mike began. "And Jake kept interrupting me. Why do you interrupt me? Do you think you talk Spanish better than I do?" "Oh, shut up, Mike! Nobody interrupted you." "No, I'd like to get this settled." He turned away from me. "Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us? People who are out to have a good time? For God's sake don't be so noisy, Cohn!" "Oh, cut it out, Mike," Cohn said. "Do you think Brett wants you here? Do you think you add to the party? Why don't you say something?" "I said all I had to say the other night, Mike." "I'm not one of you literary chaps." Mike stood shakily and leaned against the table. "I'm not clever. But I do know when I'm not wanted. Why don't you see when you're not wanted, Cohn? Go away. Go away, for God's sake. Take that sad Jewish face away. Don't you think I'm right?" He looked at us. "Sure," I said. "Let's all go over to the Iru a." "No. Don't you think I'm right? I love that woman." "Oh, don't start that again. Do shove it along, Michael," Brett said. "Don't you think I'm right, Jake?" Cohn still sat at the table. His face had the sallow, yellow look it got when he was insulted, but somehow he seemed to be enjoying it. The childish, drunken heroics of it. It was his affair with a lady of title. "Jake," Mike said. He was almost crying. "You know I'm right. Listen, you!" He turned to Cohn: "Go away! Go away now!" "But I won't go, Mike," said Cohn. "Then I'll make you!" Mike started toward him around the table. Cohn stood up and took off his glasses. He stood waiting, his face sallow, his hands fairly low, proudly and firmly waiting for the assault, ready to do battle for his lady love. I grabbed Mike. "Come on to the caf ," I said. "You can't hit him here in the hotel." "Good!" said Mike. "Good idea!" We started off. I looked back as Mike stumbled up the stairs and saw Cohn putting his glasses on again. Bill was sitting at the table pouring another glass of Fundador. Brett was sitting looking straight ahead at nothing. Outside on the square it had stopped raining and the moon was trying to get through the clouds. There was a wind blowing. The military band was playing and the crowd was massed on the far side of the square where the fireworks specialist and his son were trying to send up fire balloons. A balloon would start up jerkily, on a great bias, and be torn by the wind or blown against the houses of the square. Some fell into the crowd. The magnesium flared and the fireworks exploded and chased about in the crowd. There was no one dancing in the square. The gravel was too wet. Brett came out with Bill and joined us. We stood in the crowd and watched Don Manuel Orquito, the fireworks king, standing on a little platform, carefully starting the balloons with sticks, standing above the heads of the crowd to launch | for to-morrow?" the critic asked me. "Yes. I saw them unloaded." Pedro Romero leaned forward. "What did you think of them?" "Very nice," I said. "About twenty-six arrobas. Very short horns. Haven't you seen them?" "Oh, yes," said Romero. "They won't weigh twenty-six arrobas," said the critic. "No," said Romero. "They've got bananas for horns," the critic said. "You call them bananas?" asked Romero. He turned to me and smiled. "_You_ wouldn't call them bananas?" "No," I said. "They're horns all right." "They're very short," said Pedro Romero. "Very, very short. Still, they aren't bananas." "I say, Jake," Brett called from the next table, "you _have_ deserted us." "Just temporarily," I said. "We're talking bulls." "You _are_ superior." "Tell him that bulls have no balls," Mike shouted. He was drunk. Romero looked at me inquiringly. "Drunk," I said. "Borracho! Muy borracho!" "You might introduce your friends," Brett said. She had not stopped looking at Pedro Romero. I asked them if they would like to have coffee with us. They both stood up. Romero's face was very brown. He had very nice manners. I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking. "Tell him I think writing is lousy," Bill said. "Go on, tell him. Tell him I'm ashamed of being a writer." Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her. "Go on. Tell him!" Bill said. Romero looked up smiling. "This gentleman," I said, "is a writer." Romero was impressed. "This other one, too," I said, pointing at Cohn. "He looks like Villalta," Romero said, looking at Bill. "Rafael, doesn't he look like Villalta?" "I can't see it," the critic said. "Really," Romero said in Spanish. "He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?" "Nothing." "Is that why he drinks?" "No. He's waiting to marry this lady." "Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table. "What does he say?" "He's drunk." "Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!" "You understand?"<|quote|>I said.</|quote|>"Yes." I was sure he didn't, so it was all right. "Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants." "Pipe down, Mike." "Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants." "Pipe down." During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing. Bill was filling the glasses. "Tell him Brett wants to come into----" "Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ's sake!" Romero looked up smiling. "Pipe down! I know that," he said. Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod. Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast. "Let's all drink to--" he began. "Pedro Romero," I said. Everybody stood up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear that that was not at all what he was going to drink to. But it went off all right, and Pedro Romero shook hands with every one and he and the critic went out together. "My God! he's a lovely boy," Brett said. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn." "I started to tell him," Mike began. "And Jake kept interrupting me. Why do you interrupt me? Do you think you talk Spanish better than I do?" "Oh, shut up, Mike! Nobody interrupted you." "No, I'd like to get this settled." He turned away from me. "Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us? People who are out to have | The Sun Also Rises |
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" | Dallas | of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me | gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things | said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to | Dallas's hand came down cheerily on his shoulder. "Hullo, father: this is something like, isn't it?" They stood for a while looking out in silence, and then the young man continued: "By the way, I've got a message for you: the Countess Olenska expects us both at half-past five." He said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays. I believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort's. And she's our cousin, of course. So I rang her up this morning, before I | after the household had gone to bed, he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the avenues of horse-chestnuts, the flowers and statues in the public gardens, the whiff of lilacs from the flower-carts, the majestic roll of the river under the great bridges, and the life of art and study and pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting. Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being.... Dallas's hand came down cheerily on his shoulder. "Hullo, father: this is something like, isn't it?" They stood for a while looking out in silence, and then the young man continued: "By the way, I've got a message for you: the Countess Olenska expects us both at half-past five." He said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays. I believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort's. And she's our cousin, of course. So I rang her up this morning, before I went out, and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see her." Archer continued to stare at him. "You told her I was here?" "Of course--why not?" Dallas's eye brows went up whimsically. Then, getting no answer, he slipped his arm through his father's with a confidential pressure. "I say, father: what was she like?" Archer felt his colour rise under his son's unabashed gaze. "Come, own up: you and she were great pals, weren't you? Wasn't she most awfully lovely?" "Lovely? I don't know. She was different." "Ah--there you have it! That's what | it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder--the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?" It was the day after their arrival in Paris, and the spring sunshine held Archer in his open window, above the wide silvery prospect of the Place Vendome. One of the things he had stipulated--almost the only one--when he had agreed to come abroad with Dallas, was that, in Paris, he shouldn't be made to go to one of the newfangled "palaces." "Oh, all right--of course," Dallas good-naturedly agreed. "I'll take you to some jolly old-fashioned place--the Bristol say--" leaving his father speechless at hearing that the century-long home of kings and emperors was now spoken of as an old-fashioned inn, where one went for its quaint inconveniences and lingering local colour. Archer had pictured often enough, in the first impatient years, the scene of his return to Paris; then the personal vision had faded, and he had simply tried to see the city as the setting of Madame Olenska's life. Sitting alone at night in his library, after the household had gone to bed, he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the avenues of horse-chestnuts, the flowers and statues in the public gardens, the whiff of lilacs from the flower-carts, the majestic roll of the river under the great bridges, and the life of art and study and pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting. Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being.... Dallas's hand came down cheerily on his shoulder. "Hullo, father: this is something like, isn't it?" They stood for a while looking out in silence, and then the young man continued: "By the way, I've got a message for you: the Countess Olenska expects us both at half-past five." He said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays. I believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort's. And she's our cousin, of course. So I rang her up this morning, before I went out, and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see her." Archer continued to stare at him. "You told her I was here?" "Of course--why not?" Dallas's eye brows went up whimsically. Then, getting no answer, he slipped his arm through his father's with a confidential pressure. "I say, father: what was she like?" Archer felt his colour rise under his son's unabashed gaze. "Come, own up: you and she were great pals, weren't you? Wasn't she most awfully lovely?" "Lovely? I don't know. She was different." "Ah--there you have it! That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? When she comes, SHE'S DIFFERENT--and one doesn't know why. It's exactly what I feel about Fanny." His father drew back a step, releasing his arm. "About Fanny? But, my dear fellow--I should hope so! Only I don't see--" "Dash it, Dad, don't be prehistoric! Wasn't she--once--your Fanny?" Dallas belonged body and soul to the new generation. He was the first-born of Newland and May Archer, yet it had never been possible to inculcate in him even the rudiments of reserve. "What's the use of making mysteries? It only makes people want to nose 'em out," he always objected when enjoined to discretion. But Archer, meeting his eyes, saw the filial light under their banter. "My Fanny?" "Well, the woman you'd have chucked everything for: only you didn't," continued his surprising son. "I didn't," echoed Archer with a kind of solemnity. "No: you date, you see, dear old boy. But mother said--" "Your mother?" "Yes: the day before she died. It was when she sent for me alone--you remember? She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you | miniature. Fanny Beaufort, who had appeared in New York at eighteen, after the death of her parents, had won its heart much as Madame Olenska had won it thirty years earlier; only instead of being distrustful and afraid of her, society took her joyfully for granted. She was pretty, amusing and accomplished: what more did any one want? Nobody was narrow-minded enough to rake up against her the half-forgotten facts of her father's past and her own origin. Only the older people remembered so obscure an incident in the business life of New York as Beaufort's failure, or the fact that after his wife's death he had been quietly married to the notorious Fanny Ring, and had left the country with his new wife, and a little girl who inherited her beauty. He was subsequently heard of in Constantinople, then in Russia; and a dozen years later American travellers were handsomely entertained by him in Buenos Ayres, where he represented a large insurance agency. He and his wife died there in the odour of prosperity; and one day their orphaned daughter had appeared in New York in charge of May Archer's sister-in-law, Mrs. Jack Welland, whose husband had been appointed the girl's guardian. The fact threw her into almost cousinly relationship with Newland Archer's children, and nobody was surprised when Dallas's engagement was announced. Nothing could more dearly give the measure of the distance that the world had travelled. People nowadays were too busy--busy with reforms and "movements," with fads and fetishes and frivolities--to bother much about their neighbours. And of what account was anybody's past, in the huge kaleidoscope where all the social atoms spun around on the same plane? Newland Archer, looking out of his hotel window at the stately gaiety of the Paris streets, felt his heart beating with the confusion and eagerness of youth. It was long since it had thus plunged and reared under his widening waistcoat, leaving him, the next minute, with an empty breast and hot temples. He wondered if it was thus that his son's conducted itself in the presence of Miss Fanny Beaufort--and decided that it was not. "It functions as actively, no doubt, but the rhythm is different," he reflected, recalling the cool composure with which the young man had announced his engagement, and taken for granted that his family would approve. "The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder--the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?" It was the day after their arrival in Paris, and the spring sunshine held Archer in his open window, above the wide silvery prospect of the Place Vendome. One of the things he had stipulated--almost the only one--when he had agreed to come abroad with Dallas, was that, in Paris, he shouldn't be made to go to one of the newfangled "palaces." "Oh, all right--of course," Dallas good-naturedly agreed. "I'll take you to some jolly old-fashioned place--the Bristol say--" leaving his father speechless at hearing that the century-long home of kings and emperors was now spoken of as an old-fashioned inn, where one went for its quaint inconveniences and lingering local colour. Archer had pictured often enough, in the first impatient years, the scene of his return to Paris; then the personal vision had faded, and he had simply tried to see the city as the setting of Madame Olenska's life. Sitting alone at night in his library, after the household had gone to bed, he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the avenues of horse-chestnuts, the flowers and statues in the public gardens, the whiff of lilacs from the flower-carts, the majestic roll of the river under the great bridges, and the life of art and study and pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting. Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being.... Dallas's hand came down cheerily on his shoulder. "Hullo, father: this is something like, isn't it?" They stood for a while looking out in silence, and then the young man continued: "By the way, I've got a message for you: the Countess Olenska expects us both at half-past five." He said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays. I believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort's. And she's our cousin, of course. So I rang her up this morning, before I went out, and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see her." Archer continued to stare at him. "You told her I was here?" "Of course--why not?" Dallas's eye brows went up whimsically. Then, getting no answer, he slipped his arm through his father's with a confidential pressure. "I say, father: what was she like?" Archer felt his colour rise under his son's unabashed gaze. "Come, own up: you and she were great pals, weren't you? Wasn't she most awfully lovely?" "Lovely? I don't know. She was different." "Ah--there you have it! That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? When she comes, SHE'S DIFFERENT--and one doesn't know why. It's exactly what I feel about Fanny." His father drew back a step, releasing his arm. "About Fanny? But, my dear fellow--I should hope so! Only I don't see--" "Dash it, Dad, don't be prehistoric! Wasn't she--once--your Fanny?" Dallas belonged body and soul to the new generation. He was the first-born of Newland and May Archer, yet it had never been possible to inculcate in him even the rudiments of reserve. "What's the use of making mysteries? It only makes people want to nose 'em out," he always objected when enjoined to discretion. But Archer, meeting his eyes, saw the filial light under their banter. "My Fanny?" "Well, the woman you'd have chucked everything for: only you didn't," continued his surprising son. "I didn't," echoed Archer with a kind of solemnity. "No: you date, you see, dear old boy. But mother said--" "Your mother?" "Yes: the day before she died. It was when she sent for me alone--you remember? She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted." Archer received this strange communication in silence. His eyes remained unseeingly fixed on the thronged sunlit square below the window. At length he said in a low voice: "She never asked me." "No. I forgot. You never did ask each other anything, did you? And you never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other, and guessed at what was going on underneath. A deaf-and-dumb asylum, in fact! Well, I back your generation for knowing more about each other's private thoughts than we ever have time to find out about our own.--I say, Dad," Dallas broke off, "you're not angry with me? If you are, let's make it up and go and lunch at Henri's. I've got to rush out to Versailles afterward." Archer did not accompany his son to Versailles. He preferred to spend the afternoon in solitary roamings through Paris. He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime. After a little while he did not regret Dallas's indiscretion. It seemed to take an iron band from his heart to know that, after all, some one had guessed and pitied.... And that it should have been his wife moved him indescribably. Dallas, for all his affectionate insight, would not have understood that. To the boy, no doubt, the episode was only a pathetic instance of vain frustration, of wasted forces. But was it really no more? For a long time Archer sat on a bench in the Champs Elysees and wondered, while the stream of life rolled by.... A few streets away, a few hours away, Ellen Olenska waited. She had never gone back to her husband, and when he had died, some years before, she had made no change in her way of living. There was nothing now to keep her and Archer apart--and that afternoon he was to see her. He got up and walked across the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries gardens to the Louvre. She had once told him that she often went there, and he had a fancy to spend the intervening time in a place where he could think of her as perhaps having lately been. For an hour or more he wandered from gallery to gallery through the dazzle of afternoon light, and one by one the pictures burst on him in their half-forgotten splendour, | Dallas good-naturedly agreed. "I'll take you to some jolly old-fashioned place--the Bristol say--" leaving his father speechless at hearing that the century-long home of kings and emperors was now spoken of as an old-fashioned inn, where one went for its quaint inconveniences and lingering local colour. Archer had pictured often enough, in the first impatient years, the scene of his return to Paris; then the personal vision had faded, and he had simply tried to see the city as the setting of Madame Olenska's life. Sitting alone at night in his library, after the household had gone to bed, he had evoked the radiant outbreak of spring down the avenues of horse-chestnuts, the flowers and statues in the public gardens, the whiff of lilacs from the flower-carts, the majestic roll of the river under the great bridges, and the life of art and study and pleasure that filled each mighty artery to bursting. Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being.... Dallas's hand came down cheerily on his shoulder. "Hullo, father: this is something like, isn't it?" They stood for a while looking out in silence, and then the young man continued: "By the way, I've got a message for you: the Countess Olenska expects us both at half-past five." He said it lightly, carelessly, as he might have imparted any casual item of information, such as the hour at which their train was to leave for Florence the next evening. Archer looked at him, and thought he saw in his gay young eyes a gleam of his great-grandmother Mingott's malice.<|quote|>"Oh, didn't I tell you?"</|quote|>Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to the Assomption. Fanny hadn't any friends in Paris, and Madame Olenska used to be kind to her and trot her about on holidays. I believe she was a great friend of the first Mrs. Beaufort's. And she's our cousin, of course. So I rang her up this morning, before I went out, and told her you and I were here for two days and wanted to see her." Archer continued to stare at him. "You told her I was here?" "Of course--why not?" Dallas's eye brows went up whimsically. Then, getting no answer, he slipped his arm through his father's with a confidential pressure. "I say, father: what was she like?" Archer felt his colour rise under his son's unabashed gaze. "Come, own up: you and she were great pals, weren't you? Wasn't she most awfully lovely?" "Lovely? I don't know. She was different." "Ah--there you have it! That's what it always comes to, doesn't it? When she comes, SHE'S DIFFERENT--and one doesn't know why. It's exactly what I feel about Fanny." His father drew back a step, releasing his arm. "About Fanny? But, my dear fellow--I should hope so! Only I don't see--" "Dash it, Dad, don't be prehistoric! Wasn't she--once--your Fanny?" Dallas belonged body and soul to the new generation. He was the first-born of Newland and May Archer, yet it had never been possible to inculcate in him even the rudiments of reserve. "What's the use of making mysteries? It only makes people want to nose 'em out," he always objected when enjoined to discretion. But Archer, meeting his eyes, saw the filial light under their banter. "My Fanny?" "Well, the woman you'd have chucked everything for: only you didn't," continued his surprising son. "I didn't," echoed Archer with a kind of solemnity. "No: you date, you see, dear old boy. But mother said--" "Your mother?" "Yes: the day before she died. It was when she sent for me alone--you remember? She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted." Archer received this strange communication in silence. His eyes remained unseeingly fixed on | The Age Of Innocence |
"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old." | Count Mippipopolous | you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked | in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the | two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't | wounds?" "Let's have a look at them." The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big stomach muscles bulging under the light. "You see them?" Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't | I have been around very much. I have been around a very great deal." "Drink your wine," said Brett. "We've all been around. I dare say Jake here has seen as much as you have." "My dear, I am sure Mr. Barnes has seen a lot. Don't think I don't think so, sir. I have seen a lot, too." "Of course you have, my dear," Brett said. "I was only ragging." "I have been in seven wars and four revolutions," the count said. "Soldiering?" Brett asked. "Sometimes, my dear. And I have got arrow wounds. Have you ever seen arrow wounds?" "Let's have a look at them." The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big stomach muscles bulging under the light. "You see them?" Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't anything ever happen to your values?" Brett asked. "No. Not any more." "Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love." "What does that do to your values?" "That, too, has got a place in my values." "You haven't any values. You're dead, that's all." "No, my dear. You're not right. I'm not dead at all." We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did | better but it would have been too hard to cool." He held the bottle, looking at it. I put out the glasses. "I say. You might open it," Brett suggested. "Yes, my dear. Now I'll open it." It was amazing champagne. "I say that is wine," Brett held up her glass. "We ought to toast something. 'Here's to royalty.'" "This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste." Brett's glass was empty. "You ought to write a book on wines, count," I said. "Mr. Barnes," answered the count, "all I want out of wines is to enjoy them." "Let's enjoy a little more of this," Brett pushed her glass forward. The count poured very carefully. "There, my dear. Now you enjoy that slowly, and then you can get drunk." "Drunk? Drunk?" "My dear, you are charming when you are drunk." "Listen to the man." "Mr. Barnes," the count poured my glass full. "She is the only lady I have ever known who was as charming when she was drunk as when she was sober." "You haven't been around much, have you?" "Yes, my dear. I have been around very much. I have been around a very great deal." "Drink your wine," said Brett. "We've all been around. I dare say Jake here has seen as much as you have." "My dear, I am sure Mr. Barnes has seen a lot. Don't think I don't think so, sir. I have seen a lot, too." "Of course you have, my dear," Brett said. "I was only ragging." "I have been in seven wars and four revolutions," the count said. "Soldiering?" Brett asked. "Sometimes, my dear. And I have got arrow wounds. Have you ever seen arrow wounds?" "Let's have a look at them." The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big stomach muscles bulging under the light. "You see them?" Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't anything ever happen to your values?" Brett asked. "No. Not any more." "Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love." "What does that do to your values?" "That, too, has got a place in my values." "You haven't any values. You're dead, that's all." "No, my dear. You're not right. I'm not dead at all." We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party. "Where would you like to go?" asked the count after dinner. We were the only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over against the door. They wanted to go home. "We might go up on the hill," Brett said. "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear." "All right," said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. | to me. "Like to try a real American cigar?" "Thanks," I said. "I'll finish the cigarette." He cut off the end of his cigar with a gold cutter he wore on one end of his watch-chain. "I like a cigar to really draw," said the count "Half the cigars you smoke don't draw." He lit the cigar, puffed at it, looking across the table at Brett. "And when you're divorced, Lady Ashley, then you won't have a title." "No. What a pity." "No," said the count. "You don't need a title. You got class all over you." "Thanks. Awfully decent of you." "I'm not joking you," the count blew a cloud of smoke. "You got the most class of anybody I ever seen. You got it. That's all." "Nice of you," said Brett. "Mummy would be pleased. Couldn't you write it out, and I'll send it in a letter to her." "I'd tell her, too," said the count. "I'm not joking you. I never joke people. Joke people and you make enemies. That's what I always say." "You're right," Brett said. "You're terribly right. I always joke people and I haven't a friend in the world. Except Jake here." "You don't joke him." "That's it." "Do you, now?" asked the count. "Do you joke him?" Brett looked at me and wrinkled up the corners of her eyes. "No," she said. "I wouldn't joke him." "See," said the count. "You don't joke him." "This is a hell of a dull talk," Brett said. "How about some of that champagne?" The count reached down and twirled the bottles in the shiny bucket. "It isn't cold, yet. You're always drinking, my dear. Why don't you just talk?" "I've talked too ruddy much. I've talked myself all out to Jake." "I should like to hear you really talk, my dear. When you talk to me you never finish your sentences at all." "Leave 'em for you to finish. Let any one finish them as they like." "It is a very interesting system," the count reached down and gave the bottles a twirl. "Still I would like to hear you talk some time." "Isn't he a fool?" Brett asked. "Now," the count brought up a bottle. "I think this is cool." I brought a towel and he wiped the bottle dry and held it up. "I like to drink champagne from magnums. The wine is better but it would have been too hard to cool." He held the bottle, looking at it. I put out the glasses. "I say. You might open it," Brett suggested. "Yes, my dear. Now I'll open it." It was amazing champagne. "I say that is wine," Brett held up her glass. "We ought to toast something. 'Here's to royalty.'" "This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste." Brett's glass was empty. "You ought to write a book on wines, count," I said. "Mr. Barnes," answered the count, "all I want out of wines is to enjoy them." "Let's enjoy a little more of this," Brett pushed her glass forward. The count poured very carefully. "There, my dear. Now you enjoy that slowly, and then you can get drunk." "Drunk? Drunk?" "My dear, you are charming when you are drunk." "Listen to the man." "Mr. Barnes," the count poured my glass full. "She is the only lady I have ever known who was as charming when she was drunk as when she was sober." "You haven't been around much, have you?" "Yes, my dear. I have been around very much. I have been around a very great deal." "Drink your wine," said Brett. "We've all been around. I dare say Jake here has seen as much as you have." "My dear, I am sure Mr. Barnes has seen a lot. Don't think I don't think so, sir. I have seen a lot, too." "Of course you have, my dear," Brett said. "I was only ragging." "I have been in seven wars and four revolutions," the count said. "Soldiering?" Brett asked. "Sometimes, my dear. And I have got arrow wounds. Have you ever seen arrow wounds?" "Let's have a look at them." The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big stomach muscles bulging under the light. "You see them?" Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't anything ever happen to your values?" Brett asked. "No. Not any more." "Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love." "What does that do to your values?" "That, too, has got a place in my values." "You haven't any values. You're dead, that's all." "No, my dear. You're not right. I'm not dead at all." We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party. "Where would you like to go?" asked the count after dinner. We were the only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over against the door. They wanted to go home. "We might go up on the hill," Brett said. "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear." "All right," said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any other antiquities." "Got many antiquities?" "I got a houseful." Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli's it was crowded, smoky, and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We were caught in the jam, dancing in one place in front of him. "Hahre you?" "Great." "Thaats good." He was all teeth and lips. "He's a great friend of mine," Brett said. "Damn good drummer." The music stopped and we started toward the table where the count sat. Then the music started again and we danced. I looked at the count. He was sitting at the table smoking a cigar. The music stopped again. "Let's go over." Brett started toward the table. The music started and again we danced, tight in the crowd. "You are a rotten dancer, Jake. Michael's the best dancer I know." "He's splendid." "He's got his points." "I like him," I said. "I'm damned fond of him." "I'm going to marry him," Brett said. "Funny. I haven't thought about him for a week." "Don't you write him?" "Not I. Never write letters." "I'll bet he writes to you." "Rather. Damned good letters, too." "When are you going to get married?" "How do I know? As soon as we can get the divorce. Michael's trying to get his mother to put up for it." "Could I help you?" "Don't be an ass. Michael's people have loads of money." The music stopped. We walked over to the table. The count stood up. "Very nice," he said. "You looked very, very nice." "Don't you dance, count?" I asked. "No. I'm too old." "Oh, come off it," Brett said. "My dear, I would do it if I would enjoy it. I enjoy to watch you dance." "Splendid," Brett said. "I'll dance again for you some time. I say. What about your little friend, Zizi?" "Let me tell you. I support that boy, but I don't want to have him around." "He is rather hard." "You know I think that boy's got a future. But personally I don't want him around." "Jake's rather the same way." "He gives me the willys." "Well," the count shrugged his shoulders. "About his future you can't ever tell. Anyhow, his father was | man." "Mr. Barnes," the count poured my glass full. "She is the only lady I have ever known who was as charming when she was drunk as when she was sober." "You haven't been around much, have you?" "Yes, my dear. I have been around very much. I have been around a very great deal." "Drink your wine," said Brett. "We've all been around. I dare say Jake here has seen as much as you have." "My dear, I am sure Mr. Barnes has seen a lot. Don't think I don't think so, sir. I have seen a lot, too." "Of course you have, my dear," Brett said. "I was only ragging." "I have been in seven wars and four revolutions," the count said. "Soldiering?" Brett asked. "Sometimes, my dear. And I have got arrow wounds. Have you ever seen arrow wounds?" "Let's have a look at them." The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big stomach muscles bulging under the light. "You see them?" Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked.<|quote|>"In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old."</|quote|>"What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't anything ever happen to your values?" Brett asked. "No. Not any more." "Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love." "What does that do to your values?" "That, too, has got a place in my values." "You haven't any values. You're dead, that's all." "No, my dear. You're not right. I'm not dead at all." We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party. "Where would you like to go?" asked the count after dinner. We were the only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over against the door. They wanted to go home. "We might go up on the hill," Brett said. "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear." "All right," said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any other antiquities." "Got many antiquities?" "I got a houseful." Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli's it was crowded, smoky, and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We were caught in the jam, dancing in one place in front of him. "Hahre you?" "Great." "Thaats good." He was all teeth and lips. "He's a great friend of mine," Brett said. "Damn good drummer." The music stopped and we started toward the table where the count sat. Then the music started again and we danced. I looked at the count. He was sitting at the table smoking a | The Sun Also Rises |
promised Helen. | No speaker | ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with | definitely dislike him, but I ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with my friends in return." This | agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely dislike him, but I ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with my friends in return." This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the inner life | s about half-way between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility. Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely dislike him, but I ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with my friends in return." This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the inner life actually "pays," when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London with a | "Perhaps." All vistas close in the unseen--no one doubts it--but Helen closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of speech one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it s about half-way between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility. Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely dislike him, but I ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with my friends in return." This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the inner life actually "pays," when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind. The following morning, at eleven o clock, she presented herself at the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described it, and the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa itself had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth. Not that a visit to the office cleared things up. There was just the ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped for no possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in triplets, | you can say Jack Robinson. There! Because I m uneducated. But you, you re different; you re a heroine." "Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all that?" "You mean to keep proportion, and that s heroic, it s Greek, and I don t see why it shouldn t succeed with you. Go on and fight with him and help him. Don t ask me for help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I m going my own way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I mean to dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no concessions to Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me. I mean to love you more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built up something real, because it is purely spiritual. There s no veil of mystery over us. Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one touches the body. The popular view is, as usual, exactly the wrong one. Our bothers are over tangible things--money, husbands, house-hunting. But Heaven will work of itself." Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and answered, "Perhaps." All vistas close in the unseen--no one doubts it--but Helen closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of speech one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it s about half-way between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility. Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely dislike him, but I ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with my friends in return." This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the inner life actually "pays," when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind. The following morning, at eleven o clock, she presented herself at the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described it, and the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa itself had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth. Not that a visit to the office cleared things up. There was just the ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped for no possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in triplets, of little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or wire, of little rabbits. And even when she penetrated to the inner depths, she found only the ordinary table and Turkey carpet, and though the map over the fireplace did depict a helping of West Africa, it was a very ordinary map. Another map hung opposite, on which the whole continent appeared, looking like a whale marked out for a blubber, and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry s voice came through it, dictating a "strong" letter. She might have been at the Porphyrion, or Dempster s Bank, or her own wine-merchant s. Everything seems just alike in these days. But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial side of the company rather than its West African, and Imperialism always had been one of her difficulties. "One minute!" called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name. He touched a bell, the effect of which was to produce Charles. Charles had written his father an adequate letter--more adequate than Evie s, through which a girlish indignation throbbed. And he greeted his future stepmother with propriety. "I hope that my wife--how do you do?--will give you a decent lunch," was his opening. "I left | real explosion, which even Henry would notice. Henry must be removed. "Margaret!" her aunt called. "Magsy! It isn t true, surely, what Mr. Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?" "Not want," was Margaret s prompt reply; "but there is so much to be settled, and I do want to see the Charles s." "But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the Lulworth?" said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. "Without going once more up Nine Barrows Down?" "I m afraid so." Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with, "Good! I did the breaking of the ice." A wave of tenderness came over her. She put a hand on either shoulder, and looked deeply into the black, bright eyes. What was behind their competent stare? She knew, but was not disquieted. CHAPTER XXIII Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the evening before she left Swanage she gave her sister a thorough scolding. She censured her, not for disapproving of the engagement, but for throwing over her disapproval a veil of mystery. Helen was equally frank. "Yes," she said, with the air of one looking inwards, "there is a mystery. I can t help it. It s not my fault. It s the way life has been made." Helen in those days was over-interested in the subconscious self. She exaggerated the Punch and Judy aspect of life, and spoke of mankind as puppets, whom an invisible showman twitches into love and war. Margaret pointed out that if she dwelt on this she, too, would eliminate the personal. Helen was silent for a minute, and then burst into a queer speech, which cleared the air. "Go on and marry him. I think you re splendid; and if any one can pull it off, you will." Margaret denied that there was anything to "pull off," but she continued: "Yes, there is, and I wasn t up to it with Paul. I can do only what s easy. I can only entice and be enticed. I can t, and won t, attempt difficult relations. If I marry, it will either be a man who s strong enough to boss me or whom I m strong enough to boss. So I shan t ever marry, for there aren t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say Jack Robinson. There! Because I m uneducated. But you, you re different; you re a heroine." "Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all that?" "You mean to keep proportion, and that s heroic, it s Greek, and I don t see why it shouldn t succeed with you. Go on and fight with him and help him. Don t ask me for help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I m going my own way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I mean to dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no concessions to Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me. I mean to love you more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built up something real, because it is purely spiritual. There s no veil of mystery over us. Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one touches the body. The popular view is, as usual, exactly the wrong one. Our bothers are over tangible things--money, husbands, house-hunting. But Heaven will work of itself." Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and answered, "Perhaps." All vistas close in the unseen--no one doubts it--but Helen closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of speech one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it s about half-way between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility. Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely dislike him, but I ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with my friends in return." This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the inner life actually "pays," when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind. The following morning, at eleven o clock, she presented herself at the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described it, and the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa itself had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth. Not that a visit to the office cleared things up. There was just the ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped for no possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in triplets, of little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or wire, of little rabbits. And even when she penetrated to the inner depths, she found only the ordinary table and Turkey carpet, and though the map over the fireplace did depict a helping of West Africa, it was a very ordinary map. Another map hung opposite, on which the whole continent appeared, looking like a whale marked out for a blubber, and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry s voice came through it, dictating a "strong" letter. She might have been at the Porphyrion, or Dempster s Bank, or her own wine-merchant s. Everything seems just alike in these days. But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial side of the company rather than its West African, and Imperialism always had been one of her difficulties. "One minute!" called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name. He touched a bell, the effect of which was to produce Charles. Charles had written his father an adequate letter--more adequate than Evie s, through which a girlish indignation throbbed. And he greeted his future stepmother with propriety. "I hope that my wife--how do you do?--will give you a decent lunch," was his opening. "I left instructions, but we live in a rough-and-ready way. She expects you back to tea, too, after you have had a look at Howards End. I wonder what you ll think of the place. I wouldn t touch it with tongs myself. Do sit down! It s a measly little place." "I shall enjoy seeing it," said Margaret, feeling, for the first time, shy. "You ll see it at its worst, for Bryce decamped abroad last Monday without even arranging for a charwoman to clear up after him. I never saw such a disgraceful mess. It s unbelievable. He wasn t in the house a month." "I ve more than a little bone to pick with Bryce," called Henry from the inner chamber. "Why did he go so suddenly?" "Invalid type; couldn t sleep." "Poor fellow!" "Poor fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Wilcox, joining them. "He had the impudence to put up notice-boards without as much as saying with your leave or by your leave. Charles flung them down." "Yes, I flung them down," said Charles modestly. "I ve sent a telegram after him, and a pretty sharp one, too. He, and he in person, is responsible for the upkeep of that house for the next three years." "The keys are at the farm; we wouldn t have the keys." "Quite right." "Dolly would have taken them, but I was in, fortunately." "What s Mr. Bryce like?" asked Margaret. But nobody cared. Mr. Bryce was the tenant, who had no right to sublet; to have defined him further was a waste of time. On his misdeeds they descanted profusely, until the girl who had been typing the strong letter came out with it. Mr. Wilcox added his signature. "Now we ll be off," said he. A motor-drive, a form of felicity detested by Margaret, awaited her. Charles saw them in, civil to the last, and in a moment the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company faded away. But it was not an impressive drive. Perhaps the weather was to blame, being grey and banked high with weary clouds. Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely intended for motorists. Did not a gentleman once motor so quickly through Westmoreland that he missed it? and if Westmoreland can be missed, it will fare ill with a county whose delicate structure particularly needs the attentive eye. Hertfordshire is England at its quietest, with little emphasis of | can t, and won t, attempt difficult relations. If I marry, it will either be a man who s strong enough to boss me or whom I m strong enough to boss. So I shan t ever marry, for there aren t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say Jack Robinson. There! Because I m uneducated. But you, you re different; you re a heroine." "Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all that?" "You mean to keep proportion, and that s heroic, it s Greek, and I don t see why it shouldn t succeed with you. Go on and fight with him and help him. Don t ask me for help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I m going my own way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I mean to dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no concessions to Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me. I mean to love you more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built up something real, because it is purely spiritual. There s no veil of mystery over us. Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one touches the body. The popular view is, as usual, exactly the wrong one. Our bothers are over tangible things--money, husbands, house-hunting. But Heaven will work of itself." Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and answered, "Perhaps." All vistas close in the unseen--no one doubts it--but Helen closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of speech one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it s about half-way between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility. Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely dislike him, but I ll do what I can,"<|quote|>promised Helen.</|quote|>"Do what you can with my friends in return." This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when the inner life actually "pays," when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind. The following morning, at eleven o clock, she presented herself at the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described it, and the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa itself had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth. Not that a visit to the office cleared things up. There was just the ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped for no possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in triplets, of little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or wire, of little rabbits. And even when she penetrated to the inner depths, she found only the ordinary table and Turkey carpet, and though the map over the fireplace did depict a helping of West Africa, it was a very ordinary map. Another map hung opposite, on which the whole continent appeared, looking like a whale marked out for a blubber, and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry s voice came through it, dictating a "strong" letter. She might have been at the Porphyrion, or Dempster s Bank, or her own wine-merchant s. Everything seems just alike in these days. But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial side of the company rather than its West African, and Imperialism always had been one of her difficulties. "One minute!" called | Howards End |
"Closerie des Lilas." | Jake Barnes | can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have | the Closerie," Brett said. "I can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have you been in this pestilential | nine." "Come and have a drink, then, before you bathe." "Might do that. Now you're not talking rot." We got in the taxi. The driver looked around. "Stop at the nearest bistro," I said. "We might as well go to the Closerie," Brett said. "I can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have you been in this pestilential city long?" "Just got in to-day from Budapest." "How was Budapest?" "Wonderful. Budapest was wonderful." "Ask him about Vienna." "Vienna," said Bill, "is a strange city." "Very much like Paris," Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. | "This is Bill Gorton. Lady Ashley." Brett smiled at Bill. "I say I'm just back. Haven't bathed even. Michael comes in to-night." "Good. Come on and eat with us, and we'll all go to meet him." "Must clean myself." "Oh, rot! Come on." "Must bathe. He doesn't get in till nine." "Come and have a drink, then, before you bathe." "Might do that. Now you're not talking rot." We got in the taxi. The driver looked around. "Stop at the nearest bistro," I said. "We might as well go to the Closerie," Brett said. "I can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have you been in this pestilential city long?" "Just got in to-day from Budapest." "How was Budapest?" "Wonderful. Budapest was wonderful." "Ask him about Vienna." "Vienna," said Bill, "is a strange city." "Very much like Paris," Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. "Exactly," Bill said. "Very much like Paris at this moment." "You _have_ a good start." Sitting out on the terraces of the Lilas Brett ordered a whiskey and soda, I took one, too, and Bill took another pernod. "How are you, Jake?" "Great," I said. "I've had a good time." | to eat." "Nix," I said. "We're going to have a regular meal." "Just a suggestion," said Bill. "Want to start now?" "Come on." We started on again down the Boulevard. A horse-cab passed us. Bill looked at it. "See that horse-cab? Going to have that horse-cab stuffed for you for Christmas. Going to give all my friends stuffed animals. I'm a nature-writer." A taxi passed, some one in it waved, then banged for the driver to stop. The taxi backed up to the curb. In it was Brett. "Beautiful lady," said Bill. "Going to kidnap us." "Hullo!" Brett said. "Hullo!" "This is Bill Gorton. Lady Ashley." Brett smiled at Bill. "I say I'm just back. Haven't bathed even. Michael comes in to-night." "Good. Come on and eat with us, and we'll all go to meet him." "Must clean myself." "Oh, rot! Come on." "Must bathe. He doesn't get in till nine." "Come and have a drink, then, before you bathe." "Might do that. Now you're not talking rot." We got in the taxi. The driver looked around. "Stop at the nearest bistro," I said. "We might as well go to the Closerie," Brett said. "I can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have you been in this pestilential city long?" "Just got in to-day from Budapest." "How was Budapest?" "Wonderful. Budapest was wonderful." "Ask him about Vienna." "Vienna," said Bill, "is a strange city." "Very much like Paris," Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. "Exactly," Bill said. "Very much like Paris at this moment." "You _have_ a good start." Sitting out on the terraces of the Lilas Brett ordered a whiskey and soda, I took one, too, and Bill took another pernod. "How are you, Jake?" "Great," I said. "I've had a good time." Brett looked at me. "I was a fool to go away," she said. "One's an ass to leave Paris." "Did you have a good time?" "Oh, all right. Interesting. Not frightfully amusing." "See anybody?" "No, hardly anybody. I never went out." "Didn't you swim?" "No. Didn't do a thing." "Sounds like Vienna," Bill said. Brett wrinkled up the corners of her eyes at him. "So that's the way it was in Vienna." "It was like everything in Vienna." Brett smiled at him again. "You've a nice friend, Jake." "He's all right," I said. "He's a taxidermist." "That was in another | been a great lover of stuffed animals." We stopped and had a drink. "Certainly like to drink," Bill said. "You ought to try it some times, Jake." "You're about a hundred and forty-four ahead of me." "Ought not to daunt you. Never be daunted. Secret of my success. Never been daunted. Never been daunted in public." "Where were you drinking?" "Stopped at the Crillon. George made me a couple of Jack Roses. George's a great man. Know the secret of his success? Never been daunted." "You'll be daunted after about three more pernods." "Not in public. If I begin to feel daunted I'll go off by myself. I'm like a cat that way." "When did you see Harvey Stone?" "At the Crillon. Harvey was just a little daunted. Hadn't eaten for three days. Doesn't eat any more. Just goes off like a cat. Pretty sad." "He's all right." "Splendid. Wish he wouldn't keep going off like a cat, though. Makes me nervous." "What'll we do to-night?" "Doesn't make any difference. Only let's not get daunted. Suppose they got any hard-boiled eggs here? If they had hard-boiled eggs here we wouldn't have to go all the way down to the island to eat." "Nix," I said. "We're going to have a regular meal." "Just a suggestion," said Bill. "Want to start now?" "Come on." We started on again down the Boulevard. A horse-cab passed us. Bill looked at it. "See that horse-cab? Going to have that horse-cab stuffed for you for Christmas. Going to give all my friends stuffed animals. I'm a nature-writer." A taxi passed, some one in it waved, then banged for the driver to stop. The taxi backed up to the curb. In it was Brett. "Beautiful lady," said Bill. "Going to kidnap us." "Hullo!" Brett said. "Hullo!" "This is Bill Gorton. Lady Ashley." Brett smiled at Bill. "I say I'm just back. Haven't bathed even. Michael comes in to-night." "Good. Come on and eat with us, and we'll all go to meet him." "Must clean myself." "Oh, rot! Come on." "Must bathe. He doesn't get in till nine." "Come and have a drink, then, before you bathe." "Might do that. Now you're not talking rot." We got in the taxi. The driver looked around. "Stop at the nearest bistro," I said. "We might as well go to the Closerie," Brett said. "I can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have you been in this pestilential city long?" "Just got in to-day from Budapest." "How was Budapest?" "Wonderful. Budapest was wonderful." "Ask him about Vienna." "Vienna," said Bill, "is a strange city." "Very much like Paris," Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. "Exactly," Bill said. "Very much like Paris at this moment." "You _have_ a good start." Sitting out on the terraces of the Lilas Brett ordered a whiskey and soda, I took one, too, and Bill took another pernod. "How are you, Jake?" "Great," I said. "I've had a good time." Brett looked at me. "I was a fool to go away," she said. "One's an ass to leave Paris." "Did you have a good time?" "Oh, all right. Interesting. Not frightfully amusing." "See anybody?" "No, hardly anybody. I never went out." "Didn't you swim?" "No. Didn't do a thing." "Sounds like Vienna," Bill said. Brett wrinkled up the corners of her eyes at him. "So that's the way it was in Vienna." "It was like everything in Vienna." Brett smiled at him again. "You've a nice friend, Jake." "He's all right," I said. "He's a taxidermist." "That was in another country," Bill said. "And besides all the animals were dead." "One more," Brett said, "and I must run. Do send the waiter for a taxi." "There's a line of them. Right out in front." "Good." We had the drink and put Brett into her taxi. "Mind you're at the Select around ten. Make him come. Michael will be there." "We'll be there," Bill said. The taxi started and Brett waved. "Quite a girl," Bill said. "She's damned nice. Who's Michael?" "The man she's going to marry." "Well, well," Bill said. "That's always just the stage I meet anybody. What'll I send them? Think they'd like a couple of stuffed race-horses?" "We better eat." "Is she really Lady something or other?" Bill asked in the taxi on our way down to the Ile Saint Louis. "Oh, yes. In the stud-book and everything." "Well, well." We ate dinner at Madame Lecomte's restaurant on the far side of the island. It was crowded with Americans and we had to stand up and wait for a place. Some one had put it in the American Women's Club list as a quaint restaurant on the Paris quais as yet untouched by Americans, so we had | his money. Claimed nigger owed them money on account of wrecking hall. Wonder who translated? Was it me?" "Probably it wasn't you." "You're right. Wasn't me at all. Was another fellow. Think we called him the local Harvard man. Remember him now. Studying music." "How'd you come out?" "Not so good, Jake. Injustice everywhere. Promoter claimed nigger promised let local boy stay. Claimed nigger violated contract. Can't knock out Vienna boy in Vienna." 'My God, Mister Gorton,' "said nigger," 'I didn't do nothing in there for forty minutes but try and let him stay. That white boy musta ruptured himself swinging at me. I never did hit him.'" "Did you get any money?" "No money, Jake. All we could get was nigger's clothes. Somebody took his watch, too. Splendid nigger. Big mistake to have come to Vienna. Not so good, Jake. Not so good." "What became of the nigger?" "Went back to Cologne. Lives there. Married. Got a family. Going to write me a letter and send me the money I loaned him. Wonderful nigger. Hope I gave him the right address." "You probably did." "Well, anyway, let's eat," said Bill. "Unless you want me to tell you some more travel stories." "Go on." "Let's eat." We went down-stairs and out onto the Boulevard St. Michel in the warm June evening. "Where will we go?" "Want to eat on the island?" "Sure." We walked down the Boulevard. At the juncture of the Rue Denfert-Rochereau with the Boulevard is a statue of two men in flowing robes. "I know who they are." Bill eyed the monument. "Gentlemen who invented pharmacy. Don't try and fool me on Paris." We went on. "Here's a taxidermist's," Bill said. "Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?" "Come on," I said. "You're pie-eyed." "Pretty nice stuffed dogs," Bill said. "Certainly brighten up your flat." "Come on." "Just one stuffed dog. I can take 'em or leave 'em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog." "Come on." "Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog." "We'll get one on the way back." "All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault." We went on. "How'd you feel that way about dogs so sudden?" "Always felt that way about dogs. Always been a great lover of stuffed animals." We stopped and had a drink. "Certainly like to drink," Bill said. "You ought to try it some times, Jake." "You're about a hundred and forty-four ahead of me." "Ought not to daunt you. Never be daunted. Secret of my success. Never been daunted. Never been daunted in public." "Where were you drinking?" "Stopped at the Crillon. George made me a couple of Jack Roses. George's a great man. Know the secret of his success? Never been daunted." "You'll be daunted after about three more pernods." "Not in public. If I begin to feel daunted I'll go off by myself. I'm like a cat that way." "When did you see Harvey Stone?" "At the Crillon. Harvey was just a little daunted. Hadn't eaten for three days. Doesn't eat any more. Just goes off like a cat. Pretty sad." "He's all right." "Splendid. Wish he wouldn't keep going off like a cat, though. Makes me nervous." "What'll we do to-night?" "Doesn't make any difference. Only let's not get daunted. Suppose they got any hard-boiled eggs here? If they had hard-boiled eggs here we wouldn't have to go all the way down to the island to eat." "Nix," I said. "We're going to have a regular meal." "Just a suggestion," said Bill. "Want to start now?" "Come on." We started on again down the Boulevard. A horse-cab passed us. Bill looked at it. "See that horse-cab? Going to have that horse-cab stuffed for you for Christmas. Going to give all my friends stuffed animals. I'm a nature-writer." A taxi passed, some one in it waved, then banged for the driver to stop. The taxi backed up to the curb. In it was Brett. "Beautiful lady," said Bill. "Going to kidnap us." "Hullo!" Brett said. "Hullo!" "This is Bill Gorton. Lady Ashley." Brett smiled at Bill. "I say I'm just back. Haven't bathed even. Michael comes in to-night." "Good. Come on and eat with us, and we'll all go to meet him." "Must clean myself." "Oh, rot! Come on." "Must bathe. He doesn't get in till nine." "Come and have a drink, then, before you bathe." "Might do that. Now you're not talking rot." We got in the taxi. The driver looked around. "Stop at the nearest bistro," I said. "We might as well go to the Closerie," Brett said. "I can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have you been in this pestilential city long?" "Just got in to-day from Budapest." "How was Budapest?" "Wonderful. Budapest was wonderful." "Ask him about Vienna." "Vienna," said Bill, "is a strange city." "Very much like Paris," Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. "Exactly," Bill said. "Very much like Paris at this moment." "You _have_ a good start." Sitting out on the terraces of the Lilas Brett ordered a whiskey and soda, I took one, too, and Bill took another pernod. "How are you, Jake?" "Great," I said. "I've had a good time." Brett looked at me. "I was a fool to go away," she said. "One's an ass to leave Paris." "Did you have a good time?" "Oh, all right. Interesting. Not frightfully amusing." "See anybody?" "No, hardly anybody. I never went out." "Didn't you swim?" "No. Didn't do a thing." "Sounds like Vienna," Bill said. Brett wrinkled up the corners of her eyes at him. "So that's the way it was in Vienna." "It was like everything in Vienna." Brett smiled at him again. "You've a nice friend, Jake." "He's all right," I said. "He's a taxidermist." "That was in another country," Bill said. "And besides all the animals were dead." "One more," Brett said, "and I must run. Do send the waiter for a taxi." "There's a line of them. Right out in front." "Good." We had the drink and put Brett into her taxi. "Mind you're at the Select around ten. Make him come. Michael will be there." "We'll be there," Bill said. The taxi started and Brett waved. "Quite a girl," Bill said. "She's damned nice. Who's Michael?" "The man she's going to marry." "Well, well," Bill said. "That's always just the stage I meet anybody. What'll I send them? Think they'd like a couple of stuffed race-horses?" "We better eat." "Is she really Lady something or other?" Bill asked in the taxi on our way down to the Ile Saint Louis. "Oh, yes. In the stud-book and everything." "Well, well." We ate dinner at Madame Lecomte's restaurant on the far side of the island. It was crowded with Americans and we had to stand up and wait for a place. Some one had put it in the American Women's Club list as a quaint restaurant on the Paris quais as yet untouched by Americans, so we had to wait forty-five minutes for a table. Bill had eaten at the restaurant in 1918, and right after the armistice, and Madame Lecomte made a great fuss over seeing him. "Doesn't get us a table, though," Bill said. "Grand woman, though." We had a good meal, a roast chicken, new green beans, mashed potatoes, a salad, and some apple-pie and cheese. "You've got the world here all right," Bill said to Madame Lecomte. She raised her hand. "Oh, my God!" "You'll be rich." "I hope so." After the coffee and a _fine_ we got the bill, chalked up the same as ever on a slate, that was doubtless one of the "quaint" features, paid it, shook hands, and went out. "You never come here any more, Monsieur Barnes," Madame Lecomte said. "Too many compatriots." "Come at lunch-time. It's not crowded then." "Good. I'll be down soon." We walked along under the trees that grew out over the river on the Quai d'Orl ans side of the island. Across the river were the broken walls of old houses that were being torn down. "They're going to cut a street through." "They would," Bill said. We walked on and circled the island. The river was dark and a bateau mouche went by, all bright with lights, going fast and quiet up and out of sight under the bridge. Down the river was Notre Dame squatting against the night sky. We crossed to the left bank of the Seine by the wooden foot-bridge from the Quai de Bethune, and stopped on the bridge and looked down the river at Notre Dame. Standing on the bridge the island looked dark, the houses were high against the sky, and the trees were shadows. "It's pretty grand," Bill said. "God, I love to get back." We leaned on the wooden rail of the bridge and looked up the river to the lights of the big bridges. Below the water was smooth and black. It made no sound against the piles of the bridge. A man and a girl passed us. They were walking with their arms around each other. We crossed the bridge and walked up the Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. It was steep walking, and we went all the way up to the Place Contrescarpe. The arc-light shone through the leaves of the trees in the square, and underneath the trees was an S bus | Hadn't eaten for three days. Doesn't eat any more. Just goes off like a cat. Pretty sad." "He's all right." "Splendid. Wish he wouldn't keep going off like a cat, though. Makes me nervous." "What'll we do to-night?" "Doesn't make any difference. Only let's not get daunted. Suppose they got any hard-boiled eggs here? If they had hard-boiled eggs here we wouldn't have to go all the way down to the island to eat." "Nix," I said. "We're going to have a regular meal." "Just a suggestion," said Bill. "Want to start now?" "Come on." We started on again down the Boulevard. A horse-cab passed us. Bill looked at it. "See that horse-cab? Going to have that horse-cab stuffed for you for Christmas. Going to give all my friends stuffed animals. I'm a nature-writer." A taxi passed, some one in it waved, then banged for the driver to stop. The taxi backed up to the curb. In it was Brett. "Beautiful lady," said Bill. "Going to kidnap us." "Hullo!" Brett said. "Hullo!" "This is Bill Gorton. Lady Ashley." Brett smiled at Bill. "I say I'm just back. Haven't bathed even. Michael comes in to-night." "Good. Come on and eat with us, and we'll all go to meet him." "Must clean myself." "Oh, rot! Come on." "Must bathe. He doesn't get in till nine." "Come and have a drink, then, before you bathe." "Might do that. Now you're not talking rot." We got in the taxi. The driver looked around. "Stop at the nearest bistro," I said. "We might as well go to the Closerie," Brett said. "I can't drink these rotten brandies."<|quote|>"Closerie des Lilas."</|quote|>Brett turned to Bill. "Have you been in this pestilential city long?" "Just got in to-day from Budapest." "How was Budapest?" "Wonderful. Budapest was wonderful." "Ask him about Vienna." "Vienna," said Bill, "is a strange city." "Very much like Paris," Brett smiled at him, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. "Exactly," Bill said. "Very much like Paris at this moment." "You _have_ a good start." Sitting out on the terraces of the Lilas Brett ordered a whiskey and soda, I took one, too, and Bill took another pernod. "How are you, Jake?" "Great," I said. "I've had a good time." Brett looked at me. "I was a fool to go away," she said. "One's an ass to leave Paris." "Did you have a good time?" "Oh, all right. Interesting. Not frightfully amusing." "See anybody?" "No, hardly anybody. I never went out." "Didn't you swim?" "No. Didn't do a thing." "Sounds like Vienna," Bill said. Brett wrinkled up the corners of her eyes at him. "So that's the way it was in Vienna." "It was like everything in Vienna." Brett smiled at him again. "You've a nice friend, Jake." "He's all right," I said. "He's a taxidermist." "That was in another country," Bill said. "And besides all the animals were dead." "One more," Brett said, "and I must run. Do send the waiter for a taxi." "There's a line of them. Right out in front." "Good." We had the drink and put Brett into her taxi. "Mind you're at the Select around ten. Make him come. Michael will be there." "We'll be there," Bill said. The taxi started and Brett waved. "Quite a girl," Bill said. "She's damned nice. Who's Michael?" "The man she's going to marry." "Well, well," Bill said. "That's always just the stage I meet anybody. What'll I send them? Think they'd like a couple of stuffed race-horses?" "We better eat." "Is she really Lady something or other?" Bill asked in the taxi on our way down to the Ile | The Sun Also Rises |
she cried after a while, | No speaker | no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." | wrung her hands; but made no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." "Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. | the light," said the girl, turning away her head. "It hurts my eyes." Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." "Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. "Can I help you? I will if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. "Nancy!" cried Oliver, "What is it?" The girl beat her hands | his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. "What's that!" he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. "Who's there?" "Me. Only me," replied a tremulous voice. Oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door. It was Nancy. "Put down the light," said the girl, turning away her head. "It hurts my eyes." Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." "Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. "Can I help you? I will if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. "Nancy!" cried Oliver, "What is it?" The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered with cold. Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, and looked | and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved for crimes, so fearful and appalling. By degrees, he grew more calm, and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from his present dangers; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. "What's that!" he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. "Who's there?" "Me. Only me," replied a tremulous voice. Oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door. It was Nancy. "Put down the light," said the girl, turning away her head. "It hurts my eyes." Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." "Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. "Can I help you? I will if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. "Nancy!" cried Oliver, "What is it?" The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered with cold. Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, and looked round. "I don't know what comes over me sometimes," said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress; "it's this damp dirty room, I think. Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready?" "Am I to go with you?" asked Oliver. "Yes. I have come from Bill," replied the girl. "You are to go with me." "What for?" asked Oliver, recoiling. "What for?" echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, the moment they encountered the boy's face. "Oh! For no harm." "I don't believe it," said Oliver: who had watched her closely. "Have it your own way," rejoined | Here, he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold; of secret murders that had been committed by the lonely wayside; of bodies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and wells: which would not keep them down, deep as they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many years, and so maddened the murderers with the sight, that in their horror they had confessed their guilt, and yelled for the gibbet to end their agony. Here, too, he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of night, had been tempted (so they said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep, and the limbs quail, to think of. The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore; and the words upon them, to be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow murmurs, by the spirits of the dead. In a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it from him. Then, falling upon his knees, he prayed Heaven to spare him from such deeds; and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved for crimes, so fearful and appalling. By degrees, he grew more calm, and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from his present dangers; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. "What's that!" he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. "Who's there?" "Me. Only me," replied a tremulous voice. Oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door. It was Nancy. "Put down the light," said the girl, turning away her head. "It hurts my eyes." Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." "Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. "Can I help you? I will if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. "Nancy!" cried Oliver, "What is it?" The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered with cold. Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, and looked round. "I don't know what comes over me sometimes," said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress; "it's this damp dirty room, I think. Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready?" "Am I to go with you?" asked Oliver. "Yes. I have come from Bill," replied the girl. "You are to go with me." "What for?" asked Oliver, recoiling. "What for?" echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, the moment they encountered the boy's face. "Oh! For no harm." "I don't believe it," said Oliver: who had watched her closely. "Have it your own way," rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh. "For no good, then." Oliver could see that he had some power over the girl's better feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state. But, then, the thought darted across his mind that it was barely eleven o'clock; and that many people were still in the streets: of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his tale. As the reflection occured to him, he stepped forward: and said, somewhat hastily, that he was ready. Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his companion. She eyed him narrowly, while he spoke; and cast upon him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what had been passing in his thoughts. "Hush!" said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the door as she looked cautiously round. "You can't help yourself. I have tried hard for you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged round and round. If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time." Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with great surprise. She seemed to | other opportunity: for the Jew remained very surly and silent till night: when he prepared to go abroad. "You may burn a candle," said the Jew, putting one upon the table. "And here's a book for you to read, till they come to fetch you. Good-night!" "Good-night!" replied Oliver, softly. The Jew walked to the door: looking over his shoulder at the boy as he went. Suddenly stopping, he called him by his name. Oliver looked up; the Jew, pointing to the candle, motioned him to light it. He did so; and, as he placed the candlestick upon the table, saw that the Jew was gazing fixedly at him, with lowering and contracted brows, from the dark end of the room. "Take heed, Oliver! take heed!" said the old man, shaking his right hand before him in a warning manner. "He's a rough man, and thinks nothing of blood when his own is up. Whatever falls out, say nothing; and do what he bids you. Mind!" Placing a strong emphasis on the last word, he suffered his features gradually to resolve themselves into a ghastly grin, and, nodding his head, left the room. Oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the old man disappeared, and pondered, with a trembling heart, on the words he had just heard. The more he thought of the Jew's admonition, the more he was at a loss to divine its real purpose and meaning. He could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to Sikes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with Fagin; and after meditating for a long time, concluded that he had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the housebreaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose could be engaged. He was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was, to bewail the prospect of change very severely. He remained lost in thought for some minutes; and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed the candle, and, taking up the book which the Jew had left with him, began to read. He turned over the leaves. Carelessly at first; but, lighting on a passage which attracted his attention, he soon became intent upon the volume. It was a history of the lives and trials of great criminals; and the pages were soiled and thumbed with use. Here, he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold; of secret murders that had been committed by the lonely wayside; of bodies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and wells: which would not keep them down, deep as they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many years, and so maddened the murderers with the sight, that in their horror they had confessed their guilt, and yelled for the gibbet to end their agony. Here, too, he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of night, had been tempted (so they said) and led on, by their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep, and the limbs quail, to think of. The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid, that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore; and the words upon them, to be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow murmurs, by the spirits of the dead. In a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it from him. Then, falling upon his knees, he prayed Heaven to spare him from such deeds; and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved for crimes, so fearful and appalling. By degrees, he grew more calm, and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from his present dangers; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. "What's that!" he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. "Who's there?" "Me. Only me," replied a tremulous voice. Oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door. It was Nancy. "Put down the light," said the girl, turning away her head. "It hurts my eyes." Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." "Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. "Can I help you? I will if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. "Nancy!" cried Oliver, "What is it?" The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered with cold. Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, and looked round. "I don't know what comes over me sometimes," said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress; "it's this damp dirty room, I think. Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready?" "Am I to go with you?" asked Oliver. "Yes. I have come from Bill," replied the girl. "You are to go with me." "What for?" asked Oliver, recoiling. "What for?" echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, the moment they encountered the boy's face. "Oh! For no harm." "I don't believe it," said Oliver: who had watched her closely. "Have it your own way," rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh. "For no good, then." Oliver could see that he had some power over the girl's better feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state. But, then, the thought darted across his mind that it was barely eleven o'clock; and that many people were still in the streets: of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his tale. As the reflection occured to him, he stepped forward: and said, somewhat hastily, that he was ready. Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his companion. She eyed him narrowly, while he spoke; and cast upon him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what had been passing in his thoughts. "Hush!" said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the door as she looked cautiously round. "You can't help yourself. I have tried hard for you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged round and round. If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time." Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with great surprise. She seemed to speak the truth; her countenance was white and agitated; and she trembled with very earnestness. "I have saved you from being ill-used once, and I will again, and I do now," continued the girl aloud; "for those who would have fetched you, if I had not, would have been far more rough than me. I have promised for your being quiet and silent; if you are not, you will only do harm to yourself and me too, and perhaps be my death. See here! I have borne all this for you already, as true as God sees me show it." She pointed, hastily, to some livid bruises on her neck and arms; and continued, with great rapidity: "Remember this! And don't let me suffer more for you, just now. If I could help you, I would; but I have not the power. They don't mean to harm you; whatever they make you do, is no fault of yours. Hush! Every word from you is a blow for me. Give me your hand. Make haste! Your hand!" She caught the hand which Oliver instinctively placed in hers, and, blowing out the light, drew him after her up the stairs. The door was opened, quickly, by some one shrouded in the darkness, and was as quickly closed, when they had passed out. A hackney-cabriolet was in waiting; with the same vehemence which she had exhibited in addressing Oliver, the girl pulled him in with her, and drew the curtains close. The driver wanted no directions, but lashed his horse into full speed, without the delay of an instant. The girl still held Oliver fast by the hand, and continued to pour into his ear, the warnings and assurances she had already imparted. All was so quick and hurried, that he had scarcely time to recollect where he was, or how he came there, when the carriage stopped at the house to which the Jew's steps had been directed on the previous evening. For one brief moment, Oliver cast a hurried glance along the empty street, and a cry for help hung upon his lips. But the girl's voice was in his ear, beseeching him in such tones of agony to remember her, that he had not the heart to utter it. While he hesitated, the opportunity was gone; he was already in the house, and the door was shut. "This way," said | to be sounded in his ears, as if they were whispered, in hollow murmurs, by the spirits of the dead. In a paroxysm of fear, the boy closed the book, and thrust it from him. Then, falling upon his knees, he prayed Heaven to spare him from such deeds; and rather to will that he should die at once, than be reserved for crimes, so fearful and appalling. By degrees, he grew more calm, and besought, in a low and broken voice, that he might be rescued from his present dangers; and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred, it might come to him now, when, desolate and deserted, he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands, when a rustling noise aroused him. "What's that!" he cried, starting up, and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. "Who's there?" "Me. Only me," replied a tremulous voice. Oliver raised the candle above his head: and looked towards the door. It was Nancy. "Put down the light," said the girl, turning away her head. "It hurts my eyes." Oliver saw that she was very pale, and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair, with her back towards him: and wrung her hands; but made no reply. "God forgive me!"<|quote|>she cried after a while,</|quote|>"I never thought of this." "Has anything happened?" asked Oliver. "Can I help you? I will if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro; caught her throat; and, uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. "Nancy!" cried Oliver, "What is it?" The girl beat her hands upon her knees, and her feet upon the ground; and, suddenly stopping, drew her shawl close round her: and shivered with cold. Oliver stirred the fire. Drawing her chair close to it, she sat there, for a little time, without speaking; but at length she raised her head, and looked round. "I don't know what comes over me sometimes," said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress; "it's this damp dirty room, I think. Now, Nolly, dear, are you ready?" "Am I to go with you?" asked Oliver. "Yes. I have come from Bill," replied the girl. "You are to go with me." "What for?" asked Oliver, recoiling. "What for?" echoed the girl, raising her eyes, and averting them again, the moment they encountered the boy's face. "Oh! For no harm." "I don't believe it," said Oliver: who had watched her closely. "Have it your own way," rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh. "For no good, then." Oliver could see that he had some power over the girl's better feelings, and, for an instant, thought of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state. But, then, the thought darted across his mind that it was barely eleven o'clock; and that many people were still in the streets: of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his tale. As the reflection occured to him, he stepped forward: and said, somewhat hastily, that he was ready. Neither his brief consideration, nor its purport, was lost on his companion. She eyed him narrowly, while he spoke; and cast upon him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what had been passing in his thoughts. "Hush!" said the girl, stooping over him, and pointing to the door as she looked cautiously round. "You can't help yourself. I have tried hard for you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged round and round. If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time." Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with great surprise. She seemed to speak the truth; her countenance was white and agitated; and she trembled with very earnestness. "I have saved you from being ill-used once, and I will again, and I do now," continued the girl aloud; "for those who would have fetched you, if I had not, would have been far more rough than me. I have promised for your being quiet and silent; if you are not, you will only do harm to yourself and me too, and perhaps be my death. See here! I have borne all this for you already, as true as God sees me show it." She pointed, hastily, to some livid bruises on her neck and arms; and continued, with great rapidity: "Remember this! And don't let me suffer more for you, just now. If I could help you, I would; but I have not the power. They don't mean to harm you; whatever they make you do, is no fault of yours. Hush! Every word from you is a blow for me. Give me your hand. Make haste! Your hand!" She caught the hand which Oliver instinctively placed in hers, and, blowing out the light, drew | Oliver Twist |
"I trust not. One would always pray against that." | Miss Bartlett | must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he | and so she thought it must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just | you know, far worse. Once by the river--Oh, but he isn't killed--he wouldn't be killed, would he?" The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. | and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin. "Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can understand me. You warned me to be careful. And I--I thought I was developing." "Do not cry, dearest. Take your time." "I have been obstinate and silly--worse than you know, far worse. Once by the river--Oh, but he isn't killed--he wouldn't be killed, would he?" The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a book." "In a book?" "Heroes--gods--the nonsense of schoolgirls." "And then?" "But, Charlotte, you know what happened then." Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With | fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They descended from the carriages; they embraced each other. It was as joyful to be forgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a moment they realized vast possibilities of good. The older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion they knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that, even if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the accident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers, through miles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the dryads and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin. "Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can understand me. You warned me to be careful. And I--I thought I was developing." "Do not cry, dearest. Take your time." "I have been obstinate and silly--worse than you know, far worse. Once by the river--Oh, but he isn't killed--he wouldn't be killed, would he?" The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a book." "In a book?" "Heroes--gods--the nonsense of schoolgirls." "And then?" "But, Charlotte, you know what happened then." Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a certain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately to her. All the way back Lucy's body was shaken by deep sighs, which nothing could repress. "I want to be truthful," she whispered. "It is so hard to be absolutely truthful." "Don't be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it over before bed-time in my room." So they re-entered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the girl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased, and Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe | our driver; our driver is no help. Go and support poor Mr. Beebe--, he is nearly demented." "He may be killed!" cried the old man. "He may be killed!" "Typical behaviour," said the chaplain, as he quitted the carriage. "In the presence of reality that kind of person invariably breaks down." "What does he know?" whispered Lucy as soon as they were alone. "Charlotte, how much does Mr. Eager know?" "Nothing, dearest; he knows nothing. But--" she pointed at the driver-" "HE knows everything. Dearest, had we better? Shall I?" She took out her purse. "It is dreadful to be entangled with low-class people. He saw it all." Tapping Phaethon's back with her guide-book, she said, "Silenzio!" and offered him a franc. "Va bene," he replied, and accepted it. As well this ending to his day as any. But Lucy, a mortal maid, was disappointed in him. There was an explosion up the road. The storm had struck the overhead wire of the tramline, and one of the great supports had fallen. If they had not stopped perhaps they might have been hurt. They chose to regard it as a miraculous preservation, and the floods of love and sincerity, which fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They descended from the carriages; they embraced each other. It was as joyful to be forgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a moment they realized vast possibilities of good. The older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion they knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that, even if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the accident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers, through miles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the dryads and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin. "Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can understand me. You warned me to be careful. And I--I thought I was developing." "Do not cry, dearest. Take your time." "I have been obstinate and silly--worse than you know, far worse. Once by the river--Oh, but he isn't killed--he wouldn't be killed, would he?" The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a book." "In a book?" "Heroes--gods--the nonsense of schoolgirls." "And then?" "But, Charlotte, you know what happened then." Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a certain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately to her. All the way back Lucy's body was shaken by deep sighs, which nothing could repress. "I want to be truthful," she whispered. "It is so hard to be absolutely truthful." "Don't be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it over before bed-time in my room." So they re-entered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the girl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased, and Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe had regained good humour, and Mr. Eager was already snubbing Miss Lavish. Charlotte alone she was sure of--Charlotte, whose exterior concealed so much insight and love. The luxury of self-exposure kept her almost happy through the long evening. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she should describe it. All her sensations, her spasms of courage, her moments of unreasonable joy, her mysterious discontent, should be carefully laid before her cousin. And together in divine confidence they would disentangle and interpret them all. "At last," thought she, "I shall understand myself. I shan't again be troubled by things that come out of nothing, and mean I don't know what." Miss Alan asked her to play. She refused vehemently. Music seemed to her the employment of a child. She sat close to her cousin, who, with commendable patience, was listening to a long story about lost luggage. When it was over she capped it by a story of her own. Lucy became rather hysterical with the delay. In vain she tried to check, or at all events to accelerate, the tale. It was not till a late hour that Miss Bartlett had recovered her luggage and | in the grave--she could interpret it also. Not so these English. They gain knowledge slowly, and perhaps too late. The thoughts of a cab-driver, however just, seldom affect the lives of his employers. He was the most competent of Miss Bartlett's opponents, but infinitely the least dangerous. Once back in the town, he and his insight and his knowledge would trouble English ladies no more. Of course, it was most unpleasant; she had seen his black head in the bushes; he might make a tavern story out of it. But after all, what have we to do with taverns? Real menace belongs to the drawing-room. It was of drawing-room people that Miss Bartlett thought as she journeyed downwards towards the fading sun. Lucy sat beside her; Mr. Eager sat opposite, trying to catch her eye; he was vaguely suspicious. They spoke of Alessio Baldovinetti. Rain and darkness came on together. The two ladies huddled together under an inadequate parasol. There was a lightning flash, and Miss Lavish who was nervous, screamed from the carriage in front. At the next flash, Lucy screamed also. Mr. Eager addressed her professionally: "Courage, Miss Honeychurch, courage and faith. If I might say so, there is something almost blasphemous in this horror of the elements. Are we seriously to suppose that all these clouds, all this immense electrical display, is simply called into existence to extinguish you or me?" "No--of course--" "Even from the scientific standpoint the chances against our being struck are enormous. The steel knives, the only articles which might attract the current, are in the other carriage. And, in any case, we are infinitely safer than if we were walking. Courage--courage and faith." Under the rug, Lucy felt the kindly pressure of her cousin's hand. At times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards. Miss Bartlett, by this timely exercise of her muscles, gained more than she would have got in hours of preaching or cross examination. She renewed it when the two carriages stopped, half into Florence. "Mr. Eager!" called Mr. Beebe. "We want your assistance. Will you interpret for us?" "George!" cried Mr. Emerson. "Ask your driver which way George went. The boy may lose his way. He may be killed." "Go, Mr. Eager," said Miss Bartlett, "don't ask our driver; our driver is no help. Go and support poor Mr. Beebe--, he is nearly demented." "He may be killed!" cried the old man. "He may be killed!" "Typical behaviour," said the chaplain, as he quitted the carriage. "In the presence of reality that kind of person invariably breaks down." "What does he know?" whispered Lucy as soon as they were alone. "Charlotte, how much does Mr. Eager know?" "Nothing, dearest; he knows nothing. But--" she pointed at the driver-" "HE knows everything. Dearest, had we better? Shall I?" She took out her purse. "It is dreadful to be entangled with low-class people. He saw it all." Tapping Phaethon's back with her guide-book, she said, "Silenzio!" and offered him a franc. "Va bene," he replied, and accepted it. As well this ending to his day as any. But Lucy, a mortal maid, was disappointed in him. There was an explosion up the road. The storm had struck the overhead wire of the tramline, and one of the great supports had fallen. If they had not stopped perhaps they might have been hurt. They chose to regard it as a miraculous preservation, and the floods of love and sincerity, which fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They descended from the carriages; they embraced each other. It was as joyful to be forgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a moment they realized vast possibilities of good. The older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion they knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that, even if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the accident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers, through miles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the dryads and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin. "Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can understand me. You warned me to be careful. And I--I thought I was developing." "Do not cry, dearest. Take your time." "I have been obstinate and silly--worse than you know, far worse. Once by the river--Oh, but he isn't killed--he wouldn't be killed, would he?" The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a book." "In a book?" "Heroes--gods--the nonsense of schoolgirls." "And then?" "But, Charlotte, you know what happened then." Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a certain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately to her. All the way back Lucy's body was shaken by deep sighs, which nothing could repress. "I want to be truthful," she whispered. "It is so hard to be absolutely truthful." "Don't be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it over before bed-time in my room." So they re-entered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the girl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased, and Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe had regained good humour, and Mr. Eager was already snubbing Miss Lavish. Charlotte alone she was sure of--Charlotte, whose exterior concealed so much insight and love. The luxury of self-exposure kept her almost happy through the long evening. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she should describe it. All her sensations, her spasms of courage, her moments of unreasonable joy, her mysterious discontent, should be carefully laid before her cousin. And together in divine confidence they would disentangle and interpret them all. "At last," thought she, "I shall understand myself. I shan't again be troubled by things that come out of nothing, and mean I don't know what." Miss Alan asked her to play. She refused vehemently. Music seemed to her the employment of a child. She sat close to her cousin, who, with commendable patience, was listening to a long story about lost luggage. When it was over she capped it by a story of her own. Lucy became rather hysterical with the delay. In vain she tried to check, or at all events to accelerate, the tale. It was not till a late hour that Miss Bartlett had recovered her luggage and could say in her usual tone of gentle reproach: "Well, dear, I at all events am ready for Bedfordshire. Come into my room, and I will give a good brush to your hair." With some solemnity the door was shut, and a cane chair placed for the girl. Then Miss Bartlett said "So what is to be done?" She was unprepared for the question. It had not occurred to her that she would have to do anything. A detailed exhibition of her emotions was all that she had counted upon. "What is to be done? A point, dearest, which you alone can settle." The rain was streaming down the black windows, and the great room felt damp and chilly, One candle burnt trembling on the chest of drawers close to Miss Bartlett's toque, which cast monstrous and fantastic shadows on the bolted door. A tram roared by in the dark, and Lucy felt unaccountably sad, though she had long since dried her eyes. She lifted them to the ceiling, where the griffins and bassoons were colourless and vague, the very ghosts of joy. "It has been raining for nearly four hours," she said at last. Miss Bartlett ignored the remark. "How do you propose to silence him?" "The driver?" "My dear girl, no; Mr. George Emerson." Lucy began to pace up and down the room. "I don't understand," she said at last. She understood very well, but she no longer wished to be absolutely truthful. "How are you going to stop him talking about it?" "I have a feeling that talk is a thing he will never do." "I, too, intend to judge him charitably. But unfortunately I have met the type before. They seldom keep their exploits to themselves." "Exploits?" cried Lucy, wincing under the horrible plural. "My poor dear, did you suppose that this was his first? Come here and listen to me. I am only gathering it from his own remarks. Do you remember that day at lunch when he argued with Miss Alan that liking one person is an extra reason for liking another?" "Yes," said Lucy, whom at the time the argument had pleased. "Well, I am no prude. There is no need to call him a wicked young man, but obviously he is thoroughly unrefined. Let us put it down to his deplorable antecedents and education, if you wish. But we are no farther | blasphemous in this horror of the elements. Are we seriously to suppose that all these clouds, all this immense electrical display, is simply called into existence to extinguish you or me?" "No--of course--" "Even from the scientific standpoint the chances against our being struck are enormous. The steel knives, the only articles which might attract the current, are in the other carriage. And, in any case, we are infinitely safer than if we were walking. Courage--courage and faith." Under the rug, Lucy felt the kindly pressure of her cousin's hand. At times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards. Miss Bartlett, by this timely exercise of her muscles, gained more than she would have got in hours of preaching or cross examination. She renewed it when the two carriages stopped, half into Florence. "Mr. Eager!" called Mr. Beebe. "We want your assistance. Will you interpret for us?" "George!" cried Mr. Emerson. "Ask your driver which way George went. The boy may lose his way. He may be killed." "Go, Mr. Eager," said Miss Bartlett, "don't ask our driver; our driver is no help. Go and support poor Mr. Beebe--, he is nearly demented." "He may be killed!" cried the old man. "He may be killed!" "Typical behaviour," said the chaplain, as he quitted the carriage. "In the presence of reality that kind of person invariably breaks down." "What does he know?" whispered Lucy as soon as they were alone. "Charlotte, how much does Mr. Eager know?" "Nothing, dearest; he knows nothing. But--" she pointed at the driver-" "HE knows everything. Dearest, had we better? Shall I?" She took out her purse. "It is dreadful to be entangled with low-class people. He saw it all." Tapping Phaethon's back with her guide-book, she said, "Silenzio!" and offered him a franc. "Va bene," he replied, and accepted it. As well this ending to his day as any. But Lucy, a mortal maid, was disappointed in him. There was an explosion up the road. The storm had struck the overhead wire of the tramline, and one of the great supports had fallen. If they had not stopped perhaps they might have been hurt. They chose to regard it as a miraculous preservation, and the floods of love and sincerity, which fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They descended from the carriages; they embraced each other. It was as joyful to be forgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a moment they realized vast possibilities of good. The older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion they knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that, even if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the accident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers, through miles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the dryads and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin. "Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can understand me. You warned me to be careful. And I--I thought I was developing." "Do not cry, dearest. Take your time." "I have been obstinate and silly--worse than you know, far worse. Once by the river--Oh, but he isn't killed--he wouldn't be killed, would he?" The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to everyone.<|quote|>"I trust not. One would always pray against that."</|quote|>"He is really--I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a book." "In a book?" "Heroes--gods--the nonsense of schoolgirls." "And then?" "But, Charlotte, you know what happened then." Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a certain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately to her. All the way back Lucy's body was shaken by deep sighs, which nothing could repress. "I want to be truthful," she whispered. "It is so hard to be absolutely truthful." "Don't be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it over before bed-time in my room." So they re-entered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the girl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased, and Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe had regained good humour, and Mr. Eager was already snubbing Miss Lavish. Charlotte alone she was sure of--Charlotte, whose exterior concealed so much insight and love. The luxury of self-exposure kept her almost happy through the long evening. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she should describe it. All her sensations, her spasms of courage, her moments of unreasonable joy, her mysterious discontent, should be carefully laid before | A Room With A View |
"All right," | Brett Ashley | you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." | it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, | on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any | "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any other antiquities." "Got many antiquities?" "I got a houseful." Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli's it was crowded, smoky, and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We | drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party. "Where would you like to go?" asked the count after dinner. We were the only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over against the door. They wanted to go home. "We might go up on the hill," Brett said. "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any other antiquities." "Got many antiquities?" "I got a houseful." Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli's it was crowded, smoky, and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We were caught in the jam, dancing in one place in front of him. "Hahre you?" "Great." "Thaats good." He was all teeth and lips. "He's a great friend of mine," Brett said. "Damn good drummer." The music stopped and we started toward the table where the count sat. Then the music started again and we danced. I looked at the count. He was sitting at the table smoking a cigar. The music stopped again. "Let's go over." Brett started toward the table. The music started and again we danced, tight in the crowd. "You are a rotten dancer, Jake. Michael's | the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked. "In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old." "What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't anything ever happen to your values?" Brett asked. "No. Not any more." "Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love." "What does that do to your values?" "That, too, has got a place in my values." "You haven't any values. You're dead, that's all." "No, my dear. You're not right. I'm not dead at all." We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party. "Where would you like to go?" asked the count after dinner. We were the only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over against the door. They wanted to go home. "We might go up on the hill," Brett said. "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any other antiquities." "Got many antiquities?" "I got a houseful." Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli's it was crowded, smoky, and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We were caught in the jam, dancing in one place in front of him. "Hahre you?" "Great." "Thaats good." He was all teeth and lips. "He's a great friend of mine," Brett said. "Damn good drummer." The music stopped and we started toward the table where the count sat. Then the music started again and we danced. I looked at the count. He was sitting at the table smoking a cigar. The music stopped again. "Let's go over." Brett started toward the table. The music started and again we danced, tight in the crowd. "You are a rotten dancer, Jake. Michael's the best dancer I know." "He's splendid." "He's got his points." "I like him," I said. "I'm damned fond of him." "I'm going to marry him," Brett said. "Funny. I haven't thought about him for a week." "Don't you write him?" "Not I. Never write letters." "I'll bet he writes to you." "Rather. Damned good letters, too." "When are you going to get married?" "How do I know? As soon as we can get the divorce. Michael's trying to get his mother to put up for it." "Could I help you?" "Don't be an ass. Michael's people have loads of money." The music stopped. We walked over to the table. The count stood up. "Very nice," he said. "You looked very, very nice." "Don't you dance, count?" I asked. "No. I'm too old." "Oh, come off it," Brett said. "My dear, I would do it if I would enjoy it. I enjoy to watch you dance." "Splendid," Brett said. "I'll dance again for you some time. I say. What about your little friend, Zizi?" "Let me tell you. I support that boy, but I don't want to have him around." "He is rather hard." "You know I think that boy's | a bottle. "I think this is cool." I brought a towel and he wiped the bottle dry and held it up. "I like to drink champagne from magnums. The wine is better but it would have been too hard to cool." He held the bottle, looking at it. I put out the glasses. "I say. You might open it," Brett suggested. "Yes, my dear. Now I'll open it." It was amazing champagne. "I say that is wine," Brett held up her glass. "We ought to toast something. 'Here's to royalty.'" "This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste." Brett's glass was empty. "You ought to write a book on wines, count," I said. "Mr. Barnes," answered the count, "all I want out of wines is to enjoy them." "Let's enjoy a little more of this," Brett pushed her glass forward. The count poured very carefully. "There, my dear. Now you enjoy that slowly, and then you can get drunk." "Drunk? Drunk?" "My dear, you are charming when you are drunk." "Listen to the man." "Mr. Barnes," the count poured my glass full. "She is the only lady I have ever known who was as charming when she was drunk as when she was sober." "You haven't been around much, have you?" "Yes, my dear. I have been around very much. I have been around a very great deal." "Drink your wine," said Brett. "We've all been around. I dare say Jake here has seen as much as you have." "My dear, I am sure Mr. Barnes has seen a lot. Don't think I don't think so, sir. I have seen a lot, too." "Of course you have, my dear," Brett said. "I was only ragging." "I have been in seven wars and four revolutions," the count said. "Soldiering?" Brett asked. "Sometimes, my dear. And I have got arrow wounds. Have you ever seen arrow wounds?" "Let's have a look at them." The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big stomach muscles bulging under the light. "You see them?" Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked. "In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old." "What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't anything ever happen to your values?" Brett asked. "No. Not any more." "Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love." "What does that do to your values?" "That, too, has got a place in my values." "You haven't any values. You're dead, that's all." "No, my dear. You're not right. I'm not dead at all." We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party. "Where would you like to go?" asked the count after dinner. We were the only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over against the door. They wanted to go home. "We might go up on the hill," Brett said. "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any other antiquities." "Got many antiquities?" "I got a houseful." Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli's it was crowded, smoky, and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We were caught in the jam, dancing in one place in front of him. "Hahre you?" "Great." "Thaats good." He was all teeth and lips. "He's a great friend of mine," Brett said. "Damn good drummer." The music stopped and we started toward the table where the count sat. Then the music started again and we danced. I looked at the count. He was sitting at the table smoking a cigar. The music stopped again. "Let's go over." Brett started toward the table. The music started and again we danced, tight in the crowd. "You are a rotten dancer, Jake. Michael's the best dancer I know." "He's splendid." "He's got his points." "I like him," I said. "I'm damned fond of him." "I'm going to marry him," Brett said. "Funny. I haven't thought about him for a week." "Don't you write him?" "Not I. Never write letters." "I'll bet he writes to you." "Rather. Damned good letters, too." "When are you going to get married?" "How do I know? As soon as we can get the divorce. Michael's trying to get his mother to put up for it." "Could I help you?" "Don't be an ass. Michael's people have loads of money." The music stopped. We walked over to the table. The count stood up. "Very nice," he said. "You looked very, very nice." "Don't you dance, count?" I asked. "No. I'm too old." "Oh, come off it," Brett said. "My dear, I would do it if I would enjoy it. I enjoy to watch you dance." "Splendid," Brett said. "I'll dance again for you some time. I say. What about your little friend, Zizi?" "Let me tell you. I support that boy, but I don't want to have him around." "He is rather hard." "You know I think that boy's got a future. But personally I don't want him around." "Jake's rather the same way." "He gives me the willys." "Well," the count shrugged his shoulders. "About his future you can't ever tell. Anyhow, his father was a great friend of my father." "Come on. Let's dance," Brett said. We danced. It was crowded and close. "Oh, darling," Brett said, "I'm so miserable." I had that feeling of going through something that has all happened before. "You were happy a minute ago." The drummer shouted: "You can't two time--" "It's all gone." "What's the matter?" "I don't know. I just feel terribly." ". . . . . ." the drummer chanted. Then turned to his sticks. "Want to go?" I had the feeling as in a nightmare of it all being something repeated, something I had been through and that now I must go through again. ". . . . . ." the drummer sang softly. "Let's go," said Brett. "You don't mind." ". . . . . ." the drummer shouted and grinned at Brett. "All right," I said. We got out from the crowd. Brett went to the dressing-room. "Brett wants to go," I said to the count. He nodded. "Does she? That's fine. You take the car. I'm going to stay here for a while, Mr. Barnes." We shook hands. "It was a wonderful time," I said. "I wish you would let me get this." I took a note out of my pocket. "Mr. Barnes, don't be ridiculous," the count said. Brett came over with her wrap on. She kissed the count and put her hand on his shoulder to keep him from standing up. As we went out the door I looked back and there were three girls at his table. We got into the big car. Brett gave the chauffeur the address of her hotel. "No, don't come up," she said at the hotel. She had rung and the door was unlatched. "Really?" "No. Please." "Good night, Brett," I said. "I'm sorry you feel rotten." "Good night, Jake. Good night, darling. I won't see you again." We kissed standing at the door. She pushed me away. We kissed again. "Oh, don't!" Brett said. She turned quickly and went into the hotel. The chauffeur drove me around to my flat. I gave him twenty francs and he touched his cap and said: "Good night, sir," and | as charming when she was drunk as when she was sober." "You haven't been around much, have you?" "Yes, my dear. I have been around very much. I have been around a very great deal." "Drink your wine," said Brett. "We've all been around. I dare say Jake here has seen as much as you have." "My dear, I am sure Mr. Barnes has seen a lot. Don't think I don't think so, sir. I have seen a lot, too." "Of course you have, my dear," Brett said. "I was only ragging." "I have been in seven wars and four revolutions," the count said. "Soldiering?" Brett asked. "Sometimes, my dear. And I have got arrow wounds. Have you ever seen arrow wounds?" "Let's have a look at them." The count stood up, unbuttoned his vest, and opened his shirt. He pulled up the undershirt onto his chest and stood, his chest black, and big stomach muscles bulging under the light. "You see them?" Below the line where his ribs stopped were two raised white welts. "See on the back where they come out." Above the small of the back were the same two scars, raised as thick as a finger. "I say. Those are something." "Clean through." The count was tucking in his shirt. "Where did you get those?" I asked. "In Abyssinia. When I was twenty-one years old." "What were you doing?" asked Brett. "Were you in the army?" "I was on a business trip, my dear." "I told you he was one of us. Didn't I?" Brett turned to me. "I love you, count. You're a darling." "You make me very happy, my dear. But it isn't true." "Don't be an ass." "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived very much that now I can enjoy everything so well. Don't you find it like that?" "Yes. Absolutely." "I know," said the count. "That is the secret. You must get to know the values." "Doesn't anything ever happen to your values?" Brett asked. "No. Not any more." "Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love." "What does that do to your values?" "That, too, has got a place in my values." "You haven't any values. You're dead, that's all." "No, my dear. You're not right. I'm not dead at all." We drank three bottles of the champagne and the count left the basket in my kitchen. We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good party. "Where would you like to go?" asked the count after dinner. We were the only people left in the restaurant. The two waiters were standing over against the door. They wanted to go home. "We might go up on the hill," Brett said. "Haven't we had a splendid party?" The count was beaming. He was very happy. "You are very nice people," he said. He was smoking a cigar again. "Why don't you get married, you two?" "We want to lead our own lives," I said. "We have our careers," Brett said. "Come on. Let's get out of this." "Have another brandy," the count said. "Get it on the hill." "No. Have it here where it is quiet." "You and your quiet," said Brett. "What is it men feel about quiet?" "We like it," said the count. "Like you like noise, my dear."<|quote|>"All right,"</|quote|>said Brett. "Let's have one." "Sommelier!" the count called. "Yes, sir." "What is the oldest brandy you have?" "Eighteen eleven, sir." "Bring us a bottle." "I say. Don't be ostentatious. Call him off, Jake." "Listen, my dear. I get more value for my money in old brandy than in any other antiquities." "Got many antiquities?" "I got a houseful." Finally we went up to Montmartre. Inside Zelli's it was crowded, smoky, and noisy. The music hit you as you went in. Brett and I danced. It was so crowded we could barely move. The nigger drummer waved at Brett. We were caught in the jam, dancing in one place in front of him. "Hahre you?" "Great." "Thaats good." He was all teeth and lips. "He's a great friend of mine," Brett said. "Damn good drummer." The music stopped and we started toward the table where the count sat. Then the music started again and we danced. I looked at the count. He was sitting at the table smoking a cigar. The music stopped again. "Let's go over." Brett started toward the table. The music started and again we danced, tight in the crowd. "You are a rotten dancer, Jake. Michael's the best dancer I know." "He's splendid." "He's got his points." "I like him," I said. "I'm damned fond of him." "I'm going to marry him," Brett said. "Funny. I haven't thought about him for a week." "Don't you write him?" "Not I. Never write letters." "I'll bet he writes to you." "Rather. Damned good letters, too." "When are you going to get married?" "How do I know? As soon as we can get the divorce. Michael's trying to get his mother to put up for it." "Could I help you?" "Don't be an ass. Michael's people have loads of money." The music stopped. We walked over to the table. The count stood up. "Very nice," he said. "You looked very, very nice." "Don't you dance, count?" I asked. "No. I'm too old." "Oh, come off it," Brett said. "My dear, I would do it if I would enjoy it. I enjoy to watch you dance." "Splendid," Brett said. "I'll dance again for you some time. I say. What about your little friend, Zizi?" "Let me tell you. I support that boy, but I don't want to have him around." "He is rather hard." "You know I think that boy's | The Sun Also Rises |
Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table. | No speaker | dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried | not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She | say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.” “I don’t.” “Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” “Got some woman?” I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on | leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. “This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began. “Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.” “Is something happening?” I inquired innocently. “You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.” “I don’t.” “Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” “Got some woman?” I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?” “Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.” The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook | This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house. Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. “This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began. “Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.” “Is something happening?” I inquired innocently. “You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.” “I don’t.” “Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” “Got some woman?” I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?” “Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.” The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have | butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?” “That’s why I came over tonight.” “Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—” “Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker. “Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.” For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk. The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing. “I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?” This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house. Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. “This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began. “Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.” “Is something happening?” I inquired innocently. “You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.” “I don’t.” “Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” “Got some woman?” I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?” “Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.” The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police. The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee. Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl. “We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.” “I wasn’t back from the war.” “That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.” Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject | here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself. “You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?” I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way. “Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard?” “Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone. “Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.” “Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—” “Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.” “We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun. “You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair. “This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and—” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?” There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me. “I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?” “That’s why I came over tonight.” “Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—” “Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker. “Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.” For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk. The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing. “I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?” This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house. Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. “This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began. “Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.” “Is something happening?” I inquired innocently. “You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.” “I don’t.” “Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” “Got some woman?” I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?” “Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.” The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police. The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee. Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl. “We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.” “I wasn’t back from the war.” “That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.” Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter. “I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.” “Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?” “Very much.” “It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’ “You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!” The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Post—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms. When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand. “To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.” Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up. “Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the | a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—” “Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker. “Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.” For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk. The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing. “I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?” This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house. Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether. “This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began. “Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.” “Is something happening?” I inquired innocently. “You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.” “I don’t.” “Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.” “Got some woman?” I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded. “She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”<|quote|>Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.</|quote|>“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety. She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?” “Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.” The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police. The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee. Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl. “We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You | The Great Gatsby |
"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right." | George Emerson | any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And | you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And would you--" She could not | her attitude repelled him. "Well, I owe you a thousand apologies." "Oh, all right." "And--this is the real point--you know how silly people are gossiping--ladies especially, I am afraid--you understand what I mean?" "I'm afraid I don't." "I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And would you--" She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to | have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying: "I have behaved ridiculously." He was following his own thoughts. "I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what came over me." "I nearly fainted myself," he said; but she felt that her attitude repelled him. "Well, I owe you a thousand apologies." "Oh, all right." "And--this is the real point--you know how silly people are gossiping--ladies especially, I am afraid--you understand what I mean?" "I'm afraid I don't." "I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And would you--" She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by idle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind; he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry; his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless | face it without getting muddled. It isn't exactly that a man has died." Something warned Lucy that she must stop him. "It has happened," he repeated, "and I mean to find out what it is." "Mr. Emerson--" He turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some abstract quest. "I want to ask you something before we go in." They were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying: "I have behaved ridiculously." He was following his own thoughts. "I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what came over me." "I nearly fainted myself," he said; but she felt that her attitude repelled him. "Well, I owe you a thousand apologies." "Oh, all right." "And--this is the real point--you know how silly people are gossiping--ladies especially, I am afraid--you understand what I mean?" "I'm afraid I don't." "I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And would you--" She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by idle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind; he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry; his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless to say to him, "And would you--" and hope that he would complete the sentence for himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the knight in that beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he remembered it, just as he remembered the blood on the photographs that she had bought in Alinari's shop. It was not exactly that a man had died; something had happened to the living: they had come to a situation where character tells, and where childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth. "Well, thank you so much," she repeated, "How quickly these | them; they refused him. "And the murderer tried to kiss him, you say--how very odd Italians are!--and gave himself up to the police! Mr. Beebe was saying that Italians know everything, but I think they are rather childish. When my cousin and I were at the Pitti yesterday--What was that?" He had thrown something into the stream. "What did you throw in?" "Things I didn't want," he said crossly. "Mr. Emerson!" "Well?" "Where are the photographs?" He was silent. "I believe it was my photographs that you threw away." "I didn't know what to do with them," he cried, and his voice was that of an anxious boy. Her heart warmed towards him for the first time. "They were covered with blood. There! I'm glad I've told you; and all the time we were making conversation I was wondering what to do with them." He pointed down-stream. "They've gone." The river swirled under the bridge, "I did mind them so, and one is so foolish, it seemed better that they should go out to the sea--I don't know; I may just mean that they frightened me." Then the boy verged into a man. "For something tremendous has happened; I must face it without getting muddled. It isn't exactly that a man has died." Something warned Lucy that she must stop him. "It has happened," he repeated, "and I mean to find out what it is." "Mr. Emerson--" He turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some abstract quest. "I want to ask you something before we go in." They were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying: "I have behaved ridiculously." He was following his own thoughts. "I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what came over me." "I nearly fainted myself," he said; but she felt that her attitude repelled him. "Well, I owe you a thousand apologies." "Oh, all right." "And--this is the real point--you know how silly people are gossiping--ladies especially, I am afraid--you understand what I mean?" "I'm afraid I don't." "I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And would you--" She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by idle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind; he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry; his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless to say to him, "And would you--" and hope that he would complete the sentence for himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the knight in that beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he remembered it, just as he remembered the blood on the photographs that she had bought in Alinari's shop. It was not exactly that a man had died; something had happened to the living: they had come to a situation where character tells, and where childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth. "Well, thank you so much," she repeated, "How quickly these accidents do happen, and then one returns to the old life!" "I don't." Anxiety moved her to question him. His answer was puzzling: "I shall probably want to live." "But why, Mr. Emerson? What do you mean?" "I shall want to live, I say." Leaning her elbows on the parapet, she contemplated the River Arno, whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears. Chapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing It was a family saying that "you never knew which way Charlotte Bartlett would turn." She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy's adventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and Miss Lavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the Dazio coming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent and desoeuvre, had tried to search their reticules for provisions. It might have been most unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match for any one. For good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone. None of her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later on, by the embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing | when she spoke, and began to dust his knees. She repeated: "Oh, what have I done?" "You fainted." "I--I am very sorry." "How are you now?" "Perfectly well--absolutely well." And she began to nod and smile. "Then let us come home. There's no point in our stopping." He held out his hand to pull her up. She pretended not to see it. The cries from the fountain--they had never ceased--rang emptily. The whole world seemed pale and void of its original meaning. "How very kind you have been! I might have hurt myself falling. But now I am well. I can go alone, thank you." His hand was still extended. "Oh, my photographs!" she exclaimed suddenly. "What photographs?" "I bought some photographs at Alinari's. I must have dropped them out there in the square." She looked at him cautiously. "Would you add to your kindness by fetching them?" He added to his kindness. As soon as he had turned his back, Lucy arose with the running of a maniac and stole down the arcade towards the Arno. "Miss Honeychurch!" She stopped with her hand on her heart. "You sit still; you aren't fit to go home alone." "Yes, I am, thank you so very much." "No, you aren't. You'd go openly if you were." "But I had rather--" "Then I don't fetch your photographs." "I had rather be alone." He said imperiously: "The man is dead--the man is probably dead; sit down till you are rested." She was bewildered, and obeyed him. "And don't move till I come back." In the distance she saw creatures with black hoods, such as appear in dreams. The palace tower had lost the reflection of the declining day, and joined itself to earth. How should she talk to Mr. Emerson when he returned from the shadowy square? Again the thought occurred to her, "Oh, what have I done?" "--the thought that she, as well as the dying man, had crossed some spiritual boundary. He returned, and she talked of the murder. Oddly enough, it was an easy topic. She spoke of the Italian character; she became almost garrulous over the incident that had made her faint five minutes before. Being strong physically, she soon overcame the horror of blood. She rose without his assistance, and though wings seemed to flutter inside her, she walked firmly enough towards the Arno. There a cabman signalled to them; they refused him. "And the murderer tried to kiss him, you say--how very odd Italians are!--and gave himself up to the police! Mr. Beebe was saying that Italians know everything, but I think they are rather childish. When my cousin and I were at the Pitti yesterday--What was that?" He had thrown something into the stream. "What did you throw in?" "Things I didn't want," he said crossly. "Mr. Emerson!" "Well?" "Where are the photographs?" He was silent. "I believe it was my photographs that you threw away." "I didn't know what to do with them," he cried, and his voice was that of an anxious boy. Her heart warmed towards him for the first time. "They were covered with blood. There! I'm glad I've told you; and all the time we were making conversation I was wondering what to do with them." He pointed down-stream. "They've gone." The river swirled under the bridge, "I did mind them so, and one is so foolish, it seemed better that they should go out to the sea--I don't know; I may just mean that they frightened me." Then the boy verged into a man. "For something tremendous has happened; I must face it without getting muddled. It isn't exactly that a man has died." Something warned Lucy that she must stop him. "It has happened," he repeated, "and I mean to find out what it is." "Mr. Emerson--" He turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some abstract quest. "I want to ask you something before we go in." They were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying: "I have behaved ridiculously." He was following his own thoughts. "I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what came over me." "I nearly fainted myself," he said; but she felt that her attitude repelled him. "Well, I owe you a thousand apologies." "Oh, all right." "And--this is the real point--you know how silly people are gossiping--ladies especially, I am afraid--you understand what I mean?" "I'm afraid I don't." "I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And would you--" She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by idle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind; he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry; his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless to say to him, "And would you--" and hope that he would complete the sentence for himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the knight in that beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he remembered it, just as he remembered the blood on the photographs that she had bought in Alinari's shop. It was not exactly that a man had died; something had happened to the living: they had come to a situation where character tells, and where childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth. "Well, thank you so much," she repeated, "How quickly these accidents do happen, and then one returns to the old life!" "I don't." Anxiety moved her to question him. His answer was puzzling: "I shall probably want to live." "But why, Mr. Emerson? What do you mean?" "I shall want to live, I say." Leaning her elbows on the parapet, she contemplated the River Arno, whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears. Chapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing It was a family saying that "you never knew which way Charlotte Bartlett would turn." She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy's adventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and Miss Lavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the Dazio coming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent and desoeuvre, had tried to search their reticules for provisions. It might have been most unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match for any one. For good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone. None of her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later on, by the embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing her startled eyes at dinner-time, had again passed to himself the remark of "Too much Beethoven." But he only supposed that she was ready for an adventure, not that she had encountered it. This solitude oppressed her; she was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events, contradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong. At breakfast next morning she took decisive action. There were two plans between which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking up to the Torre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American ladies. Would Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party? Charlotte declined for herself; she had been there in the rain the previous afternoon. But she thought it an admirable idea for Lucy, who hated shopping, changing money, fetching letters, and other irksome duties--all of which Miss Bartlett must accomplish this morning and could easily accomplish alone. "No, Charlotte!" cried the girl, with real warmth. "It's very kind of Mr. Beebe, but I am certainly coming with you. I had much rather." "Very well, dear," said Miss Bartlett, with a faint flush of pleasure that called forth a deep flush of shame on the cheeks of Lucy. How abominably she behaved to Charlotte, now as always! But now she should alter. All morning she would be really nice to her. She slipped her arm into her cousin's, and they started off along the Lung' Arno. The river was a lion that morning in strength, voice, and colour. Miss Bartlett insisted on leaning over the parapet to look at it. She then made her usual remark, which was "How I do wish Freddy and your mother could see this, too!" Lucy fidgeted; it was tiresome of Charlotte to have stopped exactly where she did. "Look, Lucia! Oh, you are watching for the Torre del Gallo party. I feared you would repent you of your choice." Serious as the choice had been, Lucy did not repent. Yesterday had been a muddle--queer and odd, the kind of thing one could not write down easily on paper--but she had a feeling that Charlotte and her shopping were preferable to George Emerson and the summit of the Torre del Gallo. Since she could not unravel the tangle, she must take care not to re-enter it. She could protest sincerely against Miss Bartlett's insinuations. But though | the reflection of the declining day, and joined itself to earth. How should she talk to Mr. Emerson when he returned from the shadowy square? Again the thought occurred to her, "Oh, what have I done?" "--the thought that she, as well as the dying man, had crossed some spiritual boundary. He returned, and she talked of the murder. Oddly enough, it was an easy topic. She spoke of the Italian character; she became almost garrulous over the incident that had made her faint five minutes before. Being strong physically, she soon overcame the horror of blood. She rose without his assistance, and though wings seemed to flutter inside her, she walked firmly enough towards the Arno. There a cabman signalled to them; they refused him. "And the murderer tried to kiss him, you say--how very odd Italians are!--and gave himself up to the police! Mr. Beebe was saying that Italians know everything, but I think they are rather childish. When my cousin and I were at the Pitti yesterday--What was that?" He had thrown something into the stream. "What did you throw in?" "Things I didn't want," he said crossly. "Mr. Emerson!" "Well?" "Where are the photographs?" He was silent. "I believe it was my photographs that you threw away." "I didn't know what to do with them," he cried, and his voice was that of an anxious boy. Her heart warmed towards him for the first time. "They were covered with blood. There! I'm glad I've told you; and all the time we were making conversation I was wondering what to do with them." He pointed down-stream. "They've gone." The river swirled under the bridge, "I did mind them so, and one is so foolish, it seemed better that they should go out to the sea--I don't know; I may just mean that they frightened me." Then the boy verged into a man. "For something tremendous has happened; I must face it without getting muddled. It isn't exactly that a man has died." Something warned Lucy that she must stop him. "It has happened," he repeated, "and I mean to find out what it is." "Mr. Emerson--" He turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some abstract quest. "I want to ask you something before we go in." They were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before saying: "I have behaved ridiculously." He was following his own thoughts. "I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what came over me." "I nearly fainted myself," he said; but she felt that her attitude repelled him. "Well, I owe you a thousand apologies." "Oh, all right." "And--this is the real point--you know how silly people are gossiping--ladies especially, I am afraid--you understand what I mean?" "I'm afraid I don't." "I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?"<|quote|>"Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right--all right."</|quote|>"Thank you so much. And would you--" She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do her no harm by idle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even kind; he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry; his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was useless to say to him, "And would you--" and hope that he would complete the sentence for himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the knight in that beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he remembered it, just as he remembered the blood on the photographs that she had bought in Alinari's shop. It was not exactly that a man had died; something had happened to the living: they had come to a situation where character tells, and where childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth. "Well, thank you so much," she repeated, "How quickly these accidents do happen, and then one returns to the old life!" "I don't." Anxiety moved her to question him. His answer was puzzling: "I shall probably want to live." "But why, Mr. Emerson? What do you mean?" "I shall want to live, I say." Leaning her elbows on the parapet, she contemplated the River Arno, whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears. Chapter V: Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing It was a family saying that "you never knew which way Charlotte Bartlett would turn." She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over Lucy's adventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and Miss Lavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the Dazio coming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent and desoeuvre, had tried to search their reticules for provisions. It might have been most unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match for any one. For good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone. None of her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later on, by the embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing her startled eyes at dinner-time, had again passed to himself the remark of "Too much Beethoven." But he only supposed that she was ready for an adventure, not that she had encountered it. This solitude oppressed her; she was accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events, contradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking right or wrong. At breakfast next morning she took decisive action. There were two plans between which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking up to the Torre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American ladies. Would Miss Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party? Charlotte declined for herself; she had been there in the rain the previous afternoon. But she thought it an admirable idea for Lucy, who hated shopping, changing money, fetching letters, and other irksome duties--all of which Miss Bartlett must accomplish this morning and could easily accomplish alone. "No, Charlotte!" cried the girl, with real warmth. "It's very kind of Mr. Beebe, but I am | A Room With A View |
"It's a funny thing," | Rabbit | forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort | once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, although I | others to hear," said Christopher Robin. "Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. "It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What does the North Pole _look_ like?" "Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." "I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, although I did know _once_." "I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" "Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in | time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference." As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin whispered to Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and they walked a little way up the stream together. "I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher Robin. "Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. "It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What does the North Pole _look_ like?" "Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." "I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, although I did know _once_." "I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" "Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in the ground, shouldn't you, because there'd be nowhere else to stick it." "Yes, that's what I thought." "The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, _where is it sticking_?" "That's what we're looking for," said Christopher Robin. They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his back, sleeping peacefully. Roo | his mouth full. "All except me," said Eeyore. "As Usual." He looked round at them in his melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any chance?" "I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. "Yes, I was. I thought so." "Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to Pooh's place, and began to eat. "It don't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference." As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin whispered to Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and they walked a little way up the stream together. "I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher Robin. "Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. "It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What does the North Pole _look_ like?" "Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." "I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, although I did know _once_." "I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" "Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in the ground, shouldn't you, because there'd be nowhere else to stick it." "Yes, that's what I thought." "The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, _where is it sticking_?" "That's what we're looking for," said Christopher Robin. They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his back, sleeping peacefully. Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long words like Encyclop dia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn't listening. "I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Eeyore. "This modern Behind-the-ears nonsense. What do _you_ think, Pooh?" "Well," said Pooh, "_I_ think----" But we shall never know what Pooh thought, for there came a sudden squeak from Roo, a splash, and a loud cry of alarm from Kanga. "So | "It's an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly," explained Piglet. Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six days to get all the prickles out of himself. "We are not _talking_ about gorse-bushes," said Owl a little crossly. "I am," said Pooh. They were climbing very cautiously up the stream now, going from rock to rock, and after they had gone a little way they came to a place where the banks widened out at each side, so that on each side of the water there was a level strip of grass on which they could sit down and rest. As soon as he saw this, Christopher Robin called "Halt!" and they all sat down and rested. "I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to eat all our Provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to carry." "Eat all our what?" said Pooh. "All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work. "That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work too. "Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin with his mouth full. "All except me," said Eeyore. "As Usual." He looked round at them in his melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any chance?" "I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. "Yes, I was. I thought so." "Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to Pooh's place, and began to eat. "It don't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference." As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin whispered to Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and they walked a little way up the stream together. "I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher Robin. "Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. "It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What does the North Pole _look_ like?" "Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." "I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, although I did know _once_." "I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" "Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in the ground, shouldn't you, because there'd be nowhere else to stick it." "Yes, that's what I thought." "The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, _where is it sticking_?" "That's what we're looking for," said Christopher Robin. They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his back, sleeping peacefully. Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long words like Encyclop dia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn't listening. "I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Eeyore. "This modern Behind-the-ears nonsense. What do _you_ think, Pooh?" "Well," said Pooh, "_I_ think----" But we shall never know what Pooh thought, for there came a sudden squeak from Roo, a splash, and a loud cry of alarm from Kanga. "So much for _washing_," said Eeyore. "Roo's fallen in!" cried Rabbit, and he and Christopher Robin came rushing down to the rescue. "Look at me swimming!" squeaked Roo from the middle of his pool, and was hurried down a waterfall into the next pool. "Are you all right, Roo dear?" called Kanga anxiously. "Yes!" said Roo. "Look at me sw----" and down he went over the next waterfall into another pool. Everybody was doing something to help. Piglet, wide awake suddenly, was jumping up and down and making "Oo, I say" noises; Owl was explaining that in a case of Sudden and Temporary Immersion the Important Thing was to keep the Head Above Water; Kanga was jumping along the bank, saying "Are you _sure_ you're all right, Roo dear?" to which Roo, from whatever pool he was in at the moment, was answering "Look at me swimming!" Eeyore had turned round and hung his tail over the first pool into which Roo fell, and with his back to the accident was grumbling quietly to himself, and saying, "All this washing; but catch on to my tail, little Roo, and you'll be all right" "; and, Christopher Robin and Rabbit came hurrying | as they walked, they chattered to each other of this and that, all except Pooh, who was making up a song. "This is the first verse," he said to Piglet, when he was ready with it. "First verse of what?" "My song." "What song?" "This one." "Which one?" "Well, if you listen, Piglet, you'll hear it." "How do you know I'm not listening?" Pooh couldn't answer that one, so he began to sing. "They all went off to discover the Pole, Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all; It's a Thing you Discover, as I've been tole By Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all. Eeyore, Christopher Robin and Pooh And Rabbit's relations all went too-- And where the Pole was none of them knew.... Sing Hey! for Owl and Rabbit and all!" "Hush!" said Christopher Robin turning round to Pooh, "we're just coming to a Dangerous Place." "Hush!" said Pooh turning round quickly to Piglet. "Hush!" said Piglet to Kanga. "Hush!" said Kanga to Owl, while Roo said "Hush!" several times to himself very quietly. "Hush!" said Owl to Eeyore. "_Hush!_" said Eeyore in a terrible voice to all Rabbit's friends-and-relations, and "Hush!" they said hastily to each other all down the line, until it got to the last one of all. And the last and smallest friend-and-relation was so upset to find that the whole Expotition was saying "Hush!" to _him_, that he buried himself head downwards in a crack in the ground, and stayed there for two days until the danger was over, and then went home in a great hurry, and lived quietly with his Aunt ever-afterwards. His name was Alexander Beetle. They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled between high rocky banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how dangerous it was. "It's just the place," he explained, "for an Ambush." "What sort of bush?" whispered Pooh to Piglet. "A gorse-bush?" "My dear Pooh," said Owl in his superior way, "don't you know what an Ambush is?" "Owl," said Piglet, looking round at him severely, "Pooh's whisper was a perfectly private whisper, and there was no need----" "An Ambush," said Owl, "is a sort of Surprise." "So is a gorse-bush sometimes," said Pooh. "An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh," said Piglet, "is a sort of Surprise." "If people jump out at you suddenly, that's an Ambush," said Owl. "It's an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly," explained Piglet. Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six days to get all the prickles out of himself. "We are not _talking_ about gorse-bushes," said Owl a little crossly. "I am," said Pooh. They were climbing very cautiously up the stream now, going from rock to rock, and after they had gone a little way they came to a place where the banks widened out at each side, so that on each side of the water there was a level strip of grass on which they could sit down and rest. As soon as he saw this, Christopher Robin called "Halt!" and they all sat down and rested. "I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to eat all our Provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to carry." "Eat all our what?" said Pooh. "All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work. "That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work too. "Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin with his mouth full. "All except me," said Eeyore. "As Usual." He looked round at them in his melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any chance?" "I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. "Yes, I was. I thought so." "Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to Pooh's place, and began to eat. "It don't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference." As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin whispered to Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and they walked a little way up the stream together. "I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher Robin. "Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. "It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What does the North Pole _look_ like?" "Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." "I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, although I did know _once_." "I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" "Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in the ground, shouldn't you, because there'd be nowhere else to stick it." "Yes, that's what I thought." "The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, _where is it sticking_?" "That's what we're looking for," said Christopher Robin. They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his back, sleeping peacefully. Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long words like Encyclop dia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn't listening. "I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Eeyore. "This modern Behind-the-ears nonsense. What do _you_ think, Pooh?" "Well," said Pooh, "_I_ think----" But we shall never know what Pooh thought, for there came a sudden squeak from Roo, a splash, and a loud cry of alarm from Kanga. "So much for _washing_," said Eeyore. "Roo's fallen in!" cried Rabbit, and he and Christopher Robin came rushing down to the rescue. "Look at me swimming!" squeaked Roo from the middle of his pool, and was hurried down a waterfall into the next pool. "Are you all right, Roo dear?" called Kanga anxiously. "Yes!" said Roo. "Look at me sw----" and down he went over the next waterfall into another pool. Everybody was doing something to help. Piglet, wide awake suddenly, was jumping up and down and making "Oo, I say" noises; Owl was explaining that in a case of Sudden and Temporary Immersion the Important Thing was to keep the Head Above Water; Kanga was jumping along the bank, saying "Are you _sure_ you're all right, Roo dear?" to which Roo, from whatever pool he was in at the moment, was answering "Look at me swimming!" Eeyore had turned round and hung his tail over the first pool into which Roo fell, and with his back to the accident was grumbling quietly to himself, and saying, "All this washing; but catch on to my tail, little Roo, and you'll be all right" "; and, Christopher Robin and Rabbit came hurrying past Eeyore, and were calling out to the others in front of them. "All right, Roo, I'm coming," called Christopher Robin. "Get something across the stream lower down, some of you fellows," called Rabbit. But Pooh was getting something. Two pools below Roo he was standing with a long pole in his paws, and Kanga came up and took one end of it, and between them they held it across the lower part of the pool; and Roo, still bubbling proudly, "Look at me swimming," drifted up against it, and climbed out. "Did you see me swimming?" squeaked Roo excitedly, while Kanga scolded him and rubbed him down. "Pooh, did you see me swimming? That's called swimming, what I was doing. Rabbit, did you see what I was doing? Swimming. Hallo, Piglet! I say, Piglet! What do you think I was doing! Swimming! Christopher Robin, did you see me----" But Christopher Robin wasn't listening. He was looking at Pooh. "Pooh," he said, "where did you find that pole?" Pooh looked at the pole in his hands. "I just found it," he said. "I thought it ought to be useful. I just picked it up." "Pooh," said Christopher Robin solemnly, "the Expedition is over. You have found the North Pole!" "Oh!" said Pooh. Eeyore was sitting with his tail in the water when they all got back to him. "Tell Roo to be quick, somebody," he said. "My tail's getting cold. I don't want to mention it, but I just mention it. I don't want to complain but there it is. My tail's cold." "Here I am!" squeaked Roo. "Oh, there you are." "Did you see me swimming?" Eeyore took his tail out of the water, and swished it from side to side. "As I expected," he said. "Lost all feeling. Numbed it. That's what it's done. Numbed it. Well, as long as nobody minds, I suppose it's all right." "Poor old Eeyore. I'll dry it for you," said Christopher Robin, and he took out his handkerchief and rubbed it up. "Thank you, Christopher Robin. You're the only one who seems to understand about tails. They don't think--that's what the matter with some of these others. They've no imagination. A tail isn't a tail to _them_, it's just a Little Bit Extra at the back." "Never mind, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, rubbing his hardest. "Is _that_ better?" "It's feeling more like | two days until the danger was over, and then went home in a great hurry, and lived quietly with his Aunt ever-afterwards. His name was Alexander Beetle. They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled between high rocky banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how dangerous it was. "It's just the place," he explained, "for an Ambush." "What sort of bush?" whispered Pooh to Piglet. "A gorse-bush?" "My dear Pooh," said Owl in his superior way, "don't you know what an Ambush is?" "Owl," said Piglet, looking round at him severely, "Pooh's whisper was a perfectly private whisper, and there was no need----" "An Ambush," said Owl, "is a sort of Surprise." "So is a gorse-bush sometimes," said Pooh. "An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh," said Piglet, "is a sort of Surprise." "If people jump out at you suddenly, that's an Ambush," said Owl. "It's an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you suddenly," explained Piglet. Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a gorse-bush had sprung at him suddenly one day when he fell off a tree, and he had taken six days to get all the prickles out of himself. "We are not _talking_ about gorse-bushes," said Owl a little crossly. "I am," said Pooh. They were climbing very cautiously up the stream now, going from rock to rock, and after they had gone a little way they came to a place where the banks widened out at each side, so that on each side of the water there was a level strip of grass on which they could sit down and rest. As soon as he saw this, Christopher Robin called "Halt!" and they all sat down and rested. "I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to eat all our Provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to carry." "Eat all our what?" said Pooh. "All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work. "That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work too. "Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin with his mouth full. "All except me," said Eeyore. "As Usual." He looked round at them in his melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any chance?" "I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. "Yes, I was. I thought so." "Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to Pooh's place, and began to eat. "It don't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference." As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin whispered to Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and they walked a little way up the stream together. "I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher Robin. "Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important. "It's--I wondered--It's only--Rabbit, I suppose _you_ don't know, What does the North Pole _look_ like?" "Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're asking me." "I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said Christopher Robin carelessly.<|quote|>"It's a funny thing,"</|quote|>said Rabbit, "but I've sort of forgotten too, although I did know _once_." "I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?" "Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling it a pole, and if it's a pole, well, I should think it would be sticking in the ground, shouldn't you, because there'd be nowhere else to stick it." "Yes, that's what I thought." "The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, _where is it sticking_?" "That's what we're looking for," said Christopher Robin. They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his back, sleeping peacefully. Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long words like Encyclop dia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn't listening. "I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Eeyore. "This modern Behind-the-ears nonsense. What do _you_ think, Pooh?" "Well," said Pooh, "_I_ think----" But we shall never know what Pooh thought, for there came a sudden squeak from Roo, a splash, and a loud cry of alarm from Kanga. "So much for _washing_," said Eeyore. "Roo's fallen in!" cried Rabbit, and he and Christopher Robin came rushing down to the rescue. "Look at me swimming!" squeaked Roo from the middle of his pool, and was hurried down a waterfall into the next pool. "Are you all right, Roo dear?" called Kanga anxiously. "Yes!" said Roo. "Look at me sw----" and | Winnie The Pooh |
said Denham. | No speaker | the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all | the others. He glanced towards the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all mad quite out of our | Rodney s expression changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the others. He glanced towards the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all mad quite out of our minds, Denham," he said. "It s partly Katharine s doing partly mine." He looked oddly round the room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a part had some real existence. "Quite mad," | the other. He appeared to be presiding over some meeting from which most of the members were absent. Meanwhile, he waited, and his eyes rested upon the glow of the beautifully polished mahogany table. "William is engaged to Cassandra," said Katharine briefly. At that Denham looked up quickly at Rodney. Rodney s expression changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the others. He glanced towards the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all mad quite out of our minds, Denham," he said. "It s partly Katharine s doing partly mine." He looked oddly round the room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a part had some real existence. "Quite mad," he repeated. "Even Katharine" His gaze rested upon her finally, as if she, too, had changed from his old view of her. He smiled at her as if to encourage her. "Katharine shall explain," he said, and giving a little nod to Denham, he left the room. Katharine sat down | the window and drew the curtains. He acted with a cheerful decision as if he were master of the situation, and knew exactly what he meant to do. "You re the first to hear the news, Denham," he said. "Katharine isn t going to marry me, after all." "Where shall I put" Ralph began vaguely, holding out his hat and glancing about him; he balanced it carefully against a silver bowl that stood upon the sideboard. He then sat himself down rather heavily at the head of the oval dinner-table. Rodney stood on one side of him and Katharine on the other. He appeared to be presiding over some meeting from which most of the members were absent. Meanwhile, he waited, and his eyes rested upon the glow of the beautifully polished mahogany table. "William is engaged to Cassandra," said Katharine briefly. At that Denham looked up quickly at Rodney. Rodney s expression changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the others. He glanced towards the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all mad quite out of our minds, Denham," he said. "It s partly Katharine s doing partly mine." He looked oddly round the room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a part had some real existence. "Quite mad," he repeated. "Even Katharine" His gaze rested upon her finally, as if she, too, had changed from his old view of her. He smiled at her as if to encourage her. "Katharine shall explain," he said, and giving a little nod to Denham, he left the room. Katharine sat down at once, and leant her chin upon her hands. So long as Rodney was in the room the proceedings of the evening had seemed to be in his charge, and had been marked by a certain unreality. Now that she was alone with Ralph she felt at once that a constraint had been taken from them both. She felt that they were alone at the bottom of the house, which rose, story upon story, upon the top of them. "Why were you waiting out there?" she asked. "For the chance of seeing you," he replied. "You would have waited all | beneath the lamp-post. "He s not there!" she exclaimed. No one was there. William threw the window up and looked out. The wind rushed into the room, together with the sound of distant wheels, footsteps hurrying along the pavement, and the cries of sirens hooting down the river. "Denham!" William cried. "Ralph!" said Katharine, but she spoke scarcely louder than she might have spoken to some one in the same room. With their eyes fixed upon the opposite side of the road, they did not notice a figure close to the railing which divided the garden from the street. But Denham had crossed the road and was standing there. They were startled by his voice close at hand. "Rodney!" "There you are! Come in, Denham." Rodney went to the front door and opened it. "Here he is," he said, bringing Ralph with him into the dining-room where Katharine stood, with her back to the open window. Their eyes met for a second. Denham looked half dazed by the strong light, and, buttoned in his overcoat, with his hair ruffled across his forehead by the wind, he seemed like somebody rescued from an open boat out at sea. William promptly shut the window and drew the curtains. He acted with a cheerful decision as if he were master of the situation, and knew exactly what he meant to do. "You re the first to hear the news, Denham," he said. "Katharine isn t going to marry me, after all." "Where shall I put" Ralph began vaguely, holding out his hat and glancing about him; he balanced it carefully against a silver bowl that stood upon the sideboard. He then sat himself down rather heavily at the head of the oval dinner-table. Rodney stood on one side of him and Katharine on the other. He appeared to be presiding over some meeting from which most of the members were absent. Meanwhile, he waited, and his eyes rested upon the glow of the beautifully polished mahogany table. "William is engaged to Cassandra," said Katharine briefly. At that Denham looked up quickly at Rodney. Rodney s expression changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the others. He glanced towards the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all mad quite out of our minds, Denham," he said. "It s partly Katharine s doing partly mine." He looked oddly round the room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a part had some real existence. "Quite mad," he repeated. "Even Katharine" His gaze rested upon her finally, as if she, too, had changed from his old view of her. He smiled at her as if to encourage her. "Katharine shall explain," he said, and giving a little nod to Denham, he left the room. Katharine sat down at once, and leant her chin upon her hands. So long as Rodney was in the room the proceedings of the evening had seemed to be in his charge, and had been marked by a certain unreality. Now that she was alone with Ralph she felt at once that a constraint had been taken from them both. She felt that they were alone at the bottom of the house, which rose, story upon story, upon the top of them. "Why were you waiting out there?" she asked. "For the chance of seeing you," he replied. "You would have waited all night if it hadn t been for William. It s windy too. You must have been cold. What could you see? Nothing but our windows." "It was worth it. I heard you call me." "I called you?" She had called unconsciously. "They were engaged this morning," she told him, after a pause. "You re glad?" he asked. She bent her head. "Yes, yes," she sighed. "But you don t know how good he is what he s done for me" Ralph made a sound of understanding. "You waited there last night too?" she asked. "Yes. I can wait," Denham replied. The words seemed to fill the room with an emotion which Katharine connected with the sound of distant wheels, the footsteps hurrying along the pavement, the cries of sirens hooting down the river, the darkness and the wind. She saw the upright figure standing beneath the lamp-post. "Waiting in the dark," she said, glancing at the window, as if he saw what she was seeing. "Ah, but it s different" She broke off. "I m not the person you think me. Until you realize that it s impossible" Placing her elbows on the table, she slid her ruby ring up | a flash, who the man was who was watching them. She drew the curtain abruptly. "Denham," said Rodney. "He was there last night too." He spoke sternly. His whole manner had become full of authority. Katharine felt almost as if he accused her of some crime. She was pale and uncomfortably agitated, as much by the strangeness of Rodney s behavior as by the sight of Ralph Denham. "If he chooses to come" she said defiantly. "You can t let him wait out there. I shall tell him to come in." Rodney spoke with such decision that when he raised his arm Katharine expected him to draw the curtain instantly. She caught his hand with a little exclamation. "Wait!" she cried. "I don t allow you." "You can t wait," he replied. "You ve gone too far." His hand remained upon the curtain. "Why don t you admit, Katharine," he broke out, looking at her with an expression of contempt as well as of anger, "that you love him? Are you going to treat him as you treated me?" She looked at him, wondering, in spite of all her perplexity, at the spirit that possessed him. "I forbid you to draw the curtain," she said. He reflected, and then took his hand away. "I ve no right to interfere," he concluded. "I ll leave you. Or, if you like, we ll go back to the drawing-room." "No. I can t go back," she said, shaking her head. She bent her head in thought. "You love him, Katharine," Rodney said suddenly. His tone had lost something of its sternness, and might have been used to urge a child to confess its fault. She raised her eyes and fixed them upon him. "I love him?" she repeated. He nodded. She searched his face, as if for further confirmation of his words, and, as he remained silent and expectant, turned away once more and continued her thoughts. He observed her closely, but without stirring, as if he gave her time to make up her mind to fulfil her obvious duty. The strains of Mozart reached them from the room above. "Now," she said suddenly, with a sort of desperation, rising from her chair and seeming to command Rodney to fulfil his part. He drew the curtain instantly, and she made no attempt to stop him. Their eyes at once sought the same spot beneath the lamp-post. "He s not there!" she exclaimed. No one was there. William threw the window up and looked out. The wind rushed into the room, together with the sound of distant wheels, footsteps hurrying along the pavement, and the cries of sirens hooting down the river. "Denham!" William cried. "Ralph!" said Katharine, but she spoke scarcely louder than she might have spoken to some one in the same room. With their eyes fixed upon the opposite side of the road, they did not notice a figure close to the railing which divided the garden from the street. But Denham had crossed the road and was standing there. They were startled by his voice close at hand. "Rodney!" "There you are! Come in, Denham." Rodney went to the front door and opened it. "Here he is," he said, bringing Ralph with him into the dining-room where Katharine stood, with her back to the open window. Their eyes met for a second. Denham looked half dazed by the strong light, and, buttoned in his overcoat, with his hair ruffled across his forehead by the wind, he seemed like somebody rescued from an open boat out at sea. William promptly shut the window and drew the curtains. He acted with a cheerful decision as if he were master of the situation, and knew exactly what he meant to do. "You re the first to hear the news, Denham," he said. "Katharine isn t going to marry me, after all." "Where shall I put" Ralph began vaguely, holding out his hat and glancing about him; he balanced it carefully against a silver bowl that stood upon the sideboard. He then sat himself down rather heavily at the head of the oval dinner-table. Rodney stood on one side of him and Katharine on the other. He appeared to be presiding over some meeting from which most of the members were absent. Meanwhile, he waited, and his eyes rested upon the glow of the beautifully polished mahogany table. "William is engaged to Cassandra," said Katharine briefly. At that Denham looked up quickly at Rodney. Rodney s expression changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the others. He glanced towards the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all mad quite out of our minds, Denham," he said. "It s partly Katharine s doing partly mine." He looked oddly round the room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a part had some real existence. "Quite mad," he repeated. "Even Katharine" His gaze rested upon her finally, as if she, too, had changed from his old view of her. He smiled at her as if to encourage her. "Katharine shall explain," he said, and giving a little nod to Denham, he left the room. Katharine sat down at once, and leant her chin upon her hands. So long as Rodney was in the room the proceedings of the evening had seemed to be in his charge, and had been marked by a certain unreality. Now that she was alone with Ralph she felt at once that a constraint had been taken from them both. She felt that they were alone at the bottom of the house, which rose, story upon story, upon the top of them. "Why were you waiting out there?" she asked. "For the chance of seeing you," he replied. "You would have waited all night if it hadn t been for William. It s windy too. You must have been cold. What could you see? Nothing but our windows." "It was worth it. I heard you call me." "I called you?" She had called unconsciously. "They were engaged this morning," she told him, after a pause. "You re glad?" he asked. She bent her head. "Yes, yes," she sighed. "But you don t know how good he is what he s done for me" Ralph made a sound of understanding. "You waited there last night too?" she asked. "Yes. I can wait," Denham replied. The words seemed to fill the room with an emotion which Katharine connected with the sound of distant wheels, the footsteps hurrying along the pavement, the cries of sirens hooting down the river, the darkness and the wind. She saw the upright figure standing beneath the lamp-post. "Waiting in the dark," she said, glancing at the window, as if he saw what she was seeing. "Ah, but it s different" She broke off. "I m not the person you think me. Until you realize that it s impossible" Placing her elbows on the table, she slid her ruby ring up and down her finger abstractedly. She frowned at the rows of leather-bound books opposite her. Ralph looked keenly at her. Very pale, but sternly concentrated upon her meaning, beautiful but so little aware of herself as to seem remote from him also, there was something distant and abstract about her which exalted him and chilled him at the same time. "No, you re right," he said. "I don t know you. I ve never known you." "Yet perhaps you know me better than any one else," she mused. Some detached instinct made her aware that she was gazing at a book which belonged by rights to some other part of the house. She walked over to the shelf, took it down, and returned to her seat, placing the book on the table between them. Ralph opened it and looked at the portrait of a man with a voluminous white shirt-collar, which formed the frontispiece. "I say I do know you, Katharine," he affirmed, shutting the book. "It s only for moments that I go mad." "Do you call two whole nights a moment?" "I swear to you that now, at this instant, I see you precisely as you are. No one has ever known you as I know you.... Could you have taken down that book just now if I hadn t known you?" "That s true," she replied, "but you can t think how I m divided how I m at my ease with you, and how I m bewildered. The unreality the dark the waiting outside in the wind yes, when you look at me, not seeing me, and I don t see you either.... But I do see," she went on quickly, changing her position and frowning again, "heaps of things, only not you." "Tell me what you see," he urged. But she could not reduce her vision to words, since it was no single shape colored upon the dark, but rather a general excitement, an atmosphere, which, when she tried to visualize it, took form as a wind scouring the flanks of northern hills and flashing light upon cornfields and pools. "Impossible," she sighed, laughing at the ridiculous notion of putting any part of this into words. "Try, Katharine," Ralph urged her. "But I can t I m talking a sort of nonsense the sort of nonsense one talks to oneself." She was dismayed by the | with a sort of desperation, rising from her chair and seeming to command Rodney to fulfil his part. He drew the curtain instantly, and she made no attempt to stop him. Their eyes at once sought the same spot beneath the lamp-post. "He s not there!" she exclaimed. No one was there. William threw the window up and looked out. The wind rushed into the room, together with the sound of distant wheels, footsteps hurrying along the pavement, and the cries of sirens hooting down the river. "Denham!" William cried. "Ralph!" said Katharine, but she spoke scarcely louder than she might have spoken to some one in the same room. With their eyes fixed upon the opposite side of the road, they did not notice a figure close to the railing which divided the garden from the street. But Denham had crossed the road and was standing there. They were startled by his voice close at hand. "Rodney!" "There you are! Come in, Denham." Rodney went to the front door and opened it. "Here he is," he said, bringing Ralph with him into the dining-room where Katharine stood, with her back to the open window. Their eyes met for a second. Denham looked half dazed by the strong light, and, buttoned in his overcoat, with his hair ruffled across his forehead by the wind, he seemed like somebody rescued from an open boat out at sea. William promptly shut the window and drew the curtains. He acted with a cheerful decision as if he were master of the situation, and knew exactly what he meant to do. "You re the first to hear the news, Denham," he said. "Katharine isn t going to marry me, after all." "Where shall I put" Ralph began vaguely, holding out his hat and glancing about him; he balanced it carefully against a silver bowl that stood upon the sideboard. He then sat himself down rather heavily at the head of the oval dinner-table. Rodney stood on one side of him and Katharine on the other. He appeared to be presiding over some meeting from which most of the members were absent. Meanwhile, he waited, and his eyes rested upon the glow of the beautifully polished mahogany table. "William is engaged to Cassandra," said Katharine briefly. At that Denham looked up quickly at Rodney. Rodney s expression changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the others. He glanced towards the door. "I congratulate you,"<|quote|>said Denham.</|quote|>"Yes, yes. We re all mad quite out of our minds, Denham," he said. "It s partly Katharine s doing partly mine." He looked oddly round the room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a part had some real existence. "Quite mad," he repeated. "Even Katharine" His gaze rested upon her finally, as if she, too, had changed from his old view of her. He smiled at her as if to encourage her. "Katharine shall explain," he said, and giving a little nod to Denham, he left the room. Katharine sat down at once, and leant her chin upon her hands. So long as Rodney was in the room the proceedings of the evening had seemed to be in his charge, and had been marked by a certain unreality. Now that she was alone with Ralph she felt at once that a constraint had been taken from them both. She felt that they were alone at the bottom of the house, which rose, story upon story, upon the top of them. "Why were you waiting out there?" she asked. "For the chance of seeing you," he replied. "You would have waited all night if it hadn t been for William. It s windy too. You must have been cold. What could you see? Nothing but our windows." "It was worth it. I heard you call me." "I called you?" She had called unconsciously. "They were engaged this morning," she told him, after a pause. "You re glad?" he asked. She bent her head. "Yes, yes," she sighed. "But you don t know how good he is what he s done for me" Ralph made a sound of understanding. "You waited there last night too?" she asked. "Yes. I can wait," Denham replied. The words seemed to fill the room with an emotion which Katharine connected with the sound of distant wheels, the footsteps hurrying along the pavement, the cries of sirens hooting down the river, the darkness and the wind. She saw the upright figure standing beneath the lamp-post. "Waiting in the dark," she said, glancing at the window, as if he saw what she was seeing. "Ah, but it s different" She broke off. "I | Night And Day |
"I don t want anything," | Adrian Singleton | drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never | Come and have something to drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up | won t have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and | The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. "I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. "On the wharf?" "Yes." "That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won t have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. "For God s sake don t talk to | many friends." Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. "I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. "On the wharf?" "Yes." "That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won t have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. "For God s sake don t talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don t ever talk to me again." Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman s sodden eyes, then flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion watched her enviously. "It s no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don t care to go back. What does it matter? I am quite happy here." "You will write to me if you want anything, won t you?" | complete side stood two haggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his coat with an expression of disgust. "He thinks he s got red ants on him," laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her in terror and began to whimper. At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with smooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin pipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner. "You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian. "Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly. "None of the chaps will speak to me now." "I thought you had left England." "Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at last. George doesn t speak to me either.... I don t care," he added with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn t want friends. I think I have had too many friends." Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. "I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. "On the wharf?" "Yes." "That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won t have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. "For God s sake don t talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don t ever talk to me again." Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman s sodden eyes, then flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion watched her enviously. "It s no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don t care to go back. What does it matter? I am quite happy here." "You will write to me if you want anything, won t you?" said Dorian, after a pause. "Perhaps." "Good night, then." "Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping his parched mouth with a handkerchief. Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the woman who had taken his money. "There goes the devil s bargain!" she hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice. "Curse you!" he answered, "don t call me that." She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be called, ain t it?" she yelled after him. The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He rushed out as if in pursuit. Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, | intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. They were what he needed for forgetfulness. In three days he would be free. Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. Over the low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black masts of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the yards. "Somewhere about here, sir, ain t it?" he asked huskily through the trap. Dorian started and peered round. "This will do," he answered, and having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. Here and there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. The light shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an outward-bound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked like a wet mackintosh. He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he was being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. In one of the top-windows stood a lamp. He stopped and gave a peculiar knock. After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a word to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the shadow as he passed. At the end of the hall hung a tattered green curtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him in from the street. He dragged it aside and entered a long low room which looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill flaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that faced them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed tin backed them, making quivering disks of light. The floor was covered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud, and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor. Some Malays were crouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and showing their white teeth as they chattered. In one corner, with his head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the tawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two haggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his coat with an expression of disgust. "He thinks he s got red ants on him," laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her in terror and began to whimper. At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with smooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin pipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner. "You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian. "Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly. "None of the chaps will speak to me now." "I thought you had left England." "Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at last. George doesn t speak to me either.... I don t care," he added with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn t want friends. I think I have had too many friends." Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. "I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. "On the wharf?" "Yes." "That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won t have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. "For God s sake don t talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don t ever talk to me again." Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman s sodden eyes, then flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion watched her enviously. "It s no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don t care to go back. What does it matter? I am quite happy here." "You will write to me if you want anything, won t you?" said Dorian, after a pause. "Perhaps." "Good night, then." "Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping his parched mouth with a handkerchief. Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the woman who had taken his money. "There goes the devil s bargain!" she hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice. "Curse you!" he answered, "don t call me that." She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be called, ain t it?" she yelled after him. The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He rushed out as if in pursuit. Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did it matter to him? One s days were too brief to take the burden of another s errors on one s shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts. There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell. Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself, he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his throat. He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver, and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head, and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him. "What do you want?" he gasped. "Keep quiet," said the man. "If you stir, I shoot you." "You are mad. What have I done to you?" "You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought you. I had no clue, no trace. The two people who | answered, listlessly. "None of the chaps will speak to me now." "I thought you had left England." "Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at last. George doesn t speak to me either.... I don t care," he added with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn t want friends. I think I have had too many friends." Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. "I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. "On the wharf?" "Yes." "That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won t have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something."<|quote|>"I don t want anything,"</|quote|>murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. "For God s sake don t talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don t ever talk to me again." Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman s sodden eyes, then flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion watched her enviously. "It s no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don t care to go back. What does it matter? I am quite happy here." "You will write to me if you want anything, won t you?" said Dorian, after a pause. "Perhaps." "Good night, then." "Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping his parched mouth with a handkerchief. Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the woman who had taken his money. "There goes the devil s bargain!" she hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice. "Curse you!" he answered, "don t call me that." She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be called, ain t it?" she yelled after him. The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He rushed out as if in pursuit. Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as Basil Hallward had said to him | The Picture Of Dorian Gray |
"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding." | Mr. Turton | you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque | I didn't realize he'd amuse you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as | a nurse. "I am all for Chaplains, but all against Missionaries. Let me explain." But before she could do so, the Collector intervened. "Do you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can be easily fixed up. I didn't realize he'd amuse you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze," the girl explained. "It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial glamour soon goes." Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a | but crooked smile. "He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me the creeps." "As a matter of fact I have thought what you were saying about heaven, and that is why I am against Missionaries," said the lady who had been a nurse. "I am all for Chaplains, but all against Missionaries. Let me explain." But before she could do so, the Collector intervened. "Do you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can be easily fixed up. I didn't realize he'd amuse you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze," the girl explained. "It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial glamour soon goes." Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a Bridge Party? He explained to her what that was not the game, but a party to bridge the gulf between East and West; the expression was his own invention, and amused all who heard it. "I only want those Indians whom you come across socially as your friends." "Well, we | "That occurs after so many meetings." But the lady, entirely stupid and friendly, continued: "What I mean is, I was a nurse before my marriage, and came across them a great deal, so I know. I really do know the truth about Indians. A most unsuitable position for any Englishwoman I was a nurse in a Native State. One's only hope was to hold sternly aloof." "Even from one's patients?" "Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die," said Mrs. Callendar. "How if he went to heaven?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but crooked smile. "He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me the creeps." "As a matter of fact I have thought what you were saying about heaven, and that is why I am against Missionaries," said the lady who had been a nurse. "I am all for Chaplains, but all against Missionaries. Let me explain." But before she could do so, the Collector intervened. "Do you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can be easily fixed up. I didn't realize he'd amuse you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze," the girl explained. "It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial glamour soon goes." Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a Bridge Party? He explained to her what that was not the game, but a party to bridge the gulf between East and West; the expression was his own invention, and amused all who heard it. "I only want those Indians whom you come across socially as your friends." "Well, we don't come across them socially," he said, laughing. "They're full of all the virtues, but we don't, and it's now eleven-thirty, and too late to go into the reasons." "Miss Quested, what a name!" remarked Mrs. Turton to her husband as they drove away. She had not taken to the new young lady, thinking her ungracious and cranky. She trusted that she hadn't been brought out to marry nice little Heaslop, though it looked like it, Her husband agreed with her in his heart, but he never spoke against an Englishwoman if he could avoid doing so, and he only | tune, the curt series of demands on Jehovah, fused into a prayer unknown in England, and though they perceived neither Royalty nor Deity they did perceive something, they were strengthened to resist another day. Then they poured out, offering one another drinks. "Adela, have a drink; mother, a drink." They refused they were weary of drinks and Miss Quested, who always said exactly what was in her mind, announced anew that she was desirous of seeing the real India. Ronny was in high spirits. The request struck him as comic, and he called out to another passer-by: "Fielding! how's one to see the real India?" "Try seeing Indians," the man answered, and vanished. "Who was that?" "Our schoolmaster Government College." "As if one could avoid seeing them," sighed Mrs. Lesley. "I've avoided," said Miss Quested. "Excepting my own servant, I've scarcely spoken to an Indian since landing." "Oh, lucky you." "But I want to see them." She became the centre of an amused group of ladies. One said, "Wanting to see Indians! How new that sounds!" Another, "Natives! why, fancy!" A third, more serious, said, "Let me explain. Natives don't respect one any the more after meeting one, you see." "That occurs after so many meetings." But the lady, entirely stupid and friendly, continued: "What I mean is, I was a nurse before my marriage, and came across them a great deal, so I know. I really do know the truth about Indians. A most unsuitable position for any Englishwoman I was a nurse in a Native State. One's only hope was to hold sternly aloof." "Even from one's patients?" "Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die," said Mrs. Callendar. "How if he went to heaven?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but crooked smile. "He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me the creeps." "As a matter of fact I have thought what you were saying about heaven, and that is why I am against Missionaries," said the lady who had been a nurse. "I am all for Chaplains, but all against Missionaries. Let me explain." But before she could do so, the Collector intervened. "Do you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can be easily fixed up. I didn't realize he'd amuse you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze," the girl explained. "It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial glamour soon goes." Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a Bridge Party? He explained to her what that was not the game, but a party to bridge the gulf between East and West; the expression was his own invention, and amused all who heard it. "I only want those Indians whom you come across socially as your friends." "Well, we don't come across them socially," he said, laughing. "They're full of all the virtues, but we don't, and it's now eleven-thirty, and too late to go into the reasons." "Miss Quested, what a name!" remarked Mrs. Turton to her husband as they drove away. She had not taken to the new young lady, thinking her ungracious and cranky. She trusted that she hadn't been brought out to marry nice little Heaslop, though it looked like it, Her husband agreed with her in his heart, but he never spoke against an Englishwoman if he could avoid doing so, and he only said that Miss Quested naturally made mistakes. He added: "India does wonders for the judgment, especially during the hot weather; it has even done wonders for Fielding." Mrs. Turton closed her eyes at this name and remarked that Mr. Fielding wasn't pukka, and had better marry Miss Quested, for she wasn't pukka. Then they reached their bungalow, low and enormous, the oldest and most uncomfortable bungalow in the civil station, with a sunk soup plate of a lawn, and they had one drink more, this time of barley water, and went to bed. Their withdrawal from the club had broken up the evening, which, like all gatherings, had an official tinge. A community that bows the knee to a Viceroy and believes that the divinity that hedges a king can be transplanted, must feel some reverence for any viceregal substitute. At Chandrapore the Turtons were little gods; soon they would retire to some suburban villa, and die exiled from glory. "It's decent of the Burra Sahib," chattered Ronny, much gratified at the civility that had been shown to his guests. "Do you know he's never given a Bridge Party before? Coming on top of the dinner too! I wish I | our complaint," said Adela. Mrs. Moore agreed; she too was disappointed at the dullness of their new life. They had made such a romantic voyage across the Mediterranean and through the sands of Egypt to the harbour of Bombay, to find only a gridiron of bungalows at the end of it. But she did not take the disappointment as seriously as Miss Quested, for the reason that she was forty years older, and had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually. She said again that she hoped that something interesting would be arranged for next Tuesday. "Have a drink," said another pleasant voice. "Mrs. Moore Miss Quested have a drink, have two drinks." They knew who it was this time the Collector, Mr. Turton, with whom they had dined. Like themselves, he had found the atmosphere of _Cousin Kate_ too hot. Ronny, he told them, was stage-managing in place of Major Callendar, whom some native subordinate or other had let down, and doing it very well; then he turned to Ronny's other merits, and in quiet, decisive tones said much that was flattering. It wasn't that the young man was particularly good at the games or the lingo, or that he had much notion of the Law, but apparently a large but Ronny was dignified. Mrs. Moore was surprised to learn this, dignity not being a quality with which any mother credits her son. Miss Quested learnt it with anxiety, for she had not decided whether she liked dignified men. She tried indeed to discuss this point with Mr. Turton, but he silenced her with a good-humoured motion of his hand, and continued what he had come to say. "The long and the short of it is Heaslop's a sahib; he's the type we want, he's one of us," and another civilian who was leaning over the billiard table said, "Hear, hear!" The matter was thus placed beyond doubt, and the Collector passed on, for other duties called him. Meanwhile the performance ended, and the amateur orchestra played the National Anthem. Conversation and billiards stopped, faces stiffened. It was the Anthem of the Army of Occupation. It reminded every member of the club that he or she was British and in exile. It produced a little sentiment and a useful accession of will-power. The meagre tune, the curt series of demands on Jehovah, fused into a prayer unknown in England, and though they perceived neither Royalty nor Deity they did perceive something, they were strengthened to resist another day. Then they poured out, offering one another drinks. "Adela, have a drink; mother, a drink." They refused they were weary of drinks and Miss Quested, who always said exactly what was in her mind, announced anew that she was desirous of seeing the real India. Ronny was in high spirits. The request struck him as comic, and he called out to another passer-by: "Fielding! how's one to see the real India?" "Try seeing Indians," the man answered, and vanished. "Who was that?" "Our schoolmaster Government College." "As if one could avoid seeing them," sighed Mrs. Lesley. "I've avoided," said Miss Quested. "Excepting my own servant, I've scarcely spoken to an Indian since landing." "Oh, lucky you." "But I want to see them." She became the centre of an amused group of ladies. One said, "Wanting to see Indians! How new that sounds!" Another, "Natives! why, fancy!" A third, more serious, said, "Let me explain. Natives don't respect one any the more after meeting one, you see." "That occurs after so many meetings." But the lady, entirely stupid and friendly, continued: "What I mean is, I was a nurse before my marriage, and came across them a great deal, so I know. I really do know the truth about Indians. A most unsuitable position for any Englishwoman I was a nurse in a Native State. One's only hope was to hold sternly aloof." "Even from one's patients?" "Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die," said Mrs. Callendar. "How if he went to heaven?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but crooked smile. "He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me the creeps." "As a matter of fact I have thought what you were saying about heaven, and that is why I am against Missionaries," said the lady who had been a nurse. "I am all for Chaplains, but all against Missionaries. Let me explain." But before she could do so, the Collector intervened. "Do you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can be easily fixed up. I didn't realize he'd amuse you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze," the girl explained. "It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial glamour soon goes." Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a Bridge Party? He explained to her what that was not the game, but a party to bridge the gulf between East and West; the expression was his own invention, and amused all who heard it. "I only want those Indians whom you come across socially as your friends." "Well, we don't come across them socially," he said, laughing. "They're full of all the virtues, but we don't, and it's now eleven-thirty, and too late to go into the reasons." "Miss Quested, what a name!" remarked Mrs. Turton to her husband as they drove away. She had not taken to the new young lady, thinking her ungracious and cranky. She trusted that she hadn't been brought out to marry nice little Heaslop, though it looked like it, Her husband agreed with her in his heart, but he never spoke against an Englishwoman if he could avoid doing so, and he only said that Miss Quested naturally made mistakes. He added: "India does wonders for the judgment, especially during the hot weather; it has even done wonders for Fielding." Mrs. Turton closed her eyes at this name and remarked that Mr. Fielding wasn't pukka, and had better marry Miss Quested, for she wasn't pukka. Then they reached their bungalow, low and enormous, the oldest and most uncomfortable bungalow in the civil station, with a sunk soup plate of a lawn, and they had one drink more, this time of barley water, and went to bed. Their withdrawal from the club had broken up the evening, which, like all gatherings, had an official tinge. A community that bows the knee to a Viceroy and believes that the divinity that hedges a king can be transplanted, must feel some reverence for any viceregal substitute. At Chandrapore the Turtons were little gods; soon they would retire to some suburban villa, and die exiled from glory. "It's decent of the Burra Sahib," chattered Ronny, much gratified at the civility that had been shown to his guests. "Do you know he's never given a Bridge Party before? Coming on top of the dinner too! I wish I could have arranged something myself, but when you know the natives better you'll realize it's easier for the Burra Sahib than for me. They know him they know he can't be fooled I'm still fresh comparatively. No one can even begin to think of knowing this country until he has been in it twenty years. Hullo, the mater! Here's your cloak. Well: for an example of the mistakes one makes. Soon after I came out I asked one of the Pleaders to have a smoke with me only a cigarette, mind. I found afterwards that he had sent touts all over the bazaar to announce the fact told all the litigants," 'Oh, you'd better come to my Vakil Mahmoud Ali he's in with the City Magistrate.' "Ever since then I've dropped on him in Court as hard as I could. It's taught me a lesson, and I hope him." "Isn't the lesson that you should invite all the Pleaders to have a smoke with you?" "Perhaps, but time's limited and the flesh weak. I prefer my smoke at the club amongst my own sort, I'm afraid." "Why not ask the Pleaders to the club?" Miss Quested persisted. "Not allowed." He was pleasant and patient, and evidently understood why she did not understand. He implied that he had once been as she, though not for long. Going to the verandah, he called firmly to the moon. His sais answered, and without lowering his head, he ordered his trap to be brought round. Mrs. Moore, whom the club had stupefied, woke up outside. She watched the moon, whose radiance stained with primrose the purple of the surrounding sky. In England the moon had seemed dead and alien; here she was caught in the shawl of night together with earth and all the other stars. A sudden sense of unity, of kinship with the heavenly bodies, passed into the old woman and out, like water through a tank, leaving a strange freshness behind. She did not dislike _Cousin Kate_ or the National Anthem, but their note had died into a new one, just as cocktails and cigars had died into invisible flowers. When the mosque, long and domeless, gleamed at the turn of the road, she exclaimed, "Oh, yes that's where I got to that's where I've been." "Been there when?" asked her son. "Between the acts." "But, mother, you can't do that | is Heaslop's a sahib; he's the type we want, he's one of us," and another civilian who was leaning over the billiard table said, "Hear, hear!" The matter was thus placed beyond doubt, and the Collector passed on, for other duties called him. Meanwhile the performance ended, and the amateur orchestra played the National Anthem. Conversation and billiards stopped, faces stiffened. It was the Anthem of the Army of Occupation. It reminded every member of the club that he or she was British and in exile. It produced a little sentiment and a useful accession of will-power. The meagre tune, the curt series of demands on Jehovah, fused into a prayer unknown in England, and though they perceived neither Royalty nor Deity they did perceive something, they were strengthened to resist another day. Then they poured out, offering one another drinks. "Adela, have a drink; mother, a drink." They refused they were weary of drinks and Miss Quested, who always said exactly what was in her mind, announced anew that she was desirous of seeing the real India. Ronny was in high spirits. The request struck him as comic, and he called out to another passer-by: "Fielding! how's one to see the real India?" "Try seeing Indians," the man answered, and vanished. "Who was that?" "Our schoolmaster Government College." "As if one could avoid seeing them," sighed Mrs. Lesley. "I've avoided," said Miss Quested. "Excepting my own servant, I've scarcely spoken to an Indian since landing." "Oh, lucky you." "But I want to see them." She became the centre of an amused group of ladies. One said, "Wanting to see Indians! How new that sounds!" Another, "Natives! why, fancy!" A third, more serious, said, "Let me explain. Natives don't respect one any the more after meeting one, you see." "That occurs after so many meetings." But the lady, entirely stupid and friendly, continued: "What I mean is, I was a nurse before my marriage, and came across them a great deal, so I know. I really do know the truth about Indians. A most unsuitable position for any Englishwoman I was a nurse in a Native State. One's only hope was to hold sternly aloof." "Even from one's patients?" "Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die," said Mrs. Callendar. "How if he went to heaven?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but crooked smile. "He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me the creeps." "As a matter of fact I have thought what you were saying about heaven, and that is why I am against Missionaries," said the lady who had been a nurse. "I am all for Chaplains, but all against Missionaries. Let me explain." But before she could do so, the Collector intervened. "Do you really want to meet the Aryan Brother, Miss Quested? That can be easily fixed up. I didn't realize he'd amuse you." He thought a moment.<|quote|>"You can practically see any type you like. Take your choice. I know the Government people and the landowners, Heaslop here can get hold of the barrister crew, while if you want to specialize on education, we can come down on Fielding."</|quote|>"I'm tired of seeing picturesque figures pass before me as a frieze," the girl explained. "It was wonderful when we landed, but that superficial glamour soon goes." Her impressions were of no interest to the Collector; he was only concerned to give her a good time. Would she like a Bridge Party? He explained to her what that was not the game, but a party to bridge the gulf between East and West; the expression was his own invention, and amused all who heard it. "I only want those Indians whom you come across socially as your friends." "Well, we don't come across them socially," he said, laughing. "They're full of all the virtues, but we don't, and it's now eleven-thirty, and too late to go into the reasons." "Miss Quested, what a name!" remarked Mrs. Turton to her husband as they drove away. She had not taken to the new young lady, thinking her ungracious and cranky. She trusted that she hadn't been brought out to marry nice little Heaslop, though it looked like it, Her husband agreed with her in his heart, but he never spoke against an Englishwoman if he could avoid doing so, and he only said that Miss Quested naturally made mistakes. He added: "India does wonders for the judgment, especially during the hot weather; it has even done wonders for Fielding." Mrs. Turton closed her eyes at this name and remarked that Mr. Fielding wasn't pukka, and had better marry Miss Quested, for she wasn't pukka. Then they reached their bungalow, low and enormous, the oldest and most uncomfortable bungalow in the civil station, with a sunk soup plate of a lawn, and they had one drink more, this time of barley water, and went to bed. Their withdrawal from the club had broken up the evening, which, like all gatherings, had an official tinge. A community that bows the knee to a Viceroy and believes that the divinity that hedges a king can be transplanted, must feel some reverence for any viceregal substitute. At Chandrapore the Turtons were little gods; soon they would retire to some suburban villa, and die exiled from glory. "It's decent of the Burra Sahib," chattered Ronny, much gratified at the civility that had been shown to his guests. "Do you know he's never given a Bridge Party before? Coming on top of the dinner too! I wish I could have arranged something myself, but when you know the natives better you'll realize it's easier for the Burra Sahib than for me. They know him they know he can't be fooled I'm still fresh comparatively. No one can even begin to think of knowing this country until he has been in it twenty | A Passage To India |
"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that." | Jem Wimble | think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have | as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have a fair chance at them | state of torpidity. "Why, Mas' Don, by-and-by they'll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?" "The same as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have a fair chance at them again, Jem, and I don't think we shall feel very sorry if we slay a few." "Sorry?" said Jem, between his teeth. "I mean a hundred of 'em at least, as soon as we can get away; and get away | was swimming ashore; for I feel as if I can't stand this. There, listen!" There was a sound of shouting and singing from the beach below, and one of the guards tossed up his spear in a sleepy way, and shouted too, but only to subside again into a sluggish state of torpidity. "Why, Mas' Don, by-and-by they'll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?" "The same as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have a fair chance at them again, Jem, and I don't think we shall feel very sorry if we slay a few." "Sorry?" said Jem, between his teeth. "I mean a hundred of 'em at least, as soon as we can get away; and get away we will." They sat listening till the horrible feast below was at an end, and everything became so silent that they concluded that the enemy must be asleep, and began to wonder that the prisoners should all crouch together in so apathetic a state. But all at once, when everything | as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here." "Knowing what you do, Jem?" "Yes, Mas' Don, knowing what I do. It's what you know too. I can see you do." Don shuddered. "Don't, Jem, don't; it's too horrid even to think about." "Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people's used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don't seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas' Don, I'd rather ha' been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming ashore; for I feel as if I can't stand this. There, listen!" There was a sound of shouting and singing from the beach below, and one of the guards tossed up his spear in a sleepy way, and shouted too, but only to subside again into a sluggish state of torpidity. "Why, Mas' Don, by-and-by they'll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?" "The same as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have a fair chance at them again, Jem, and I don't think we shall feel very sorry if we slay a few." "Sorry?" said Jem, between his teeth. "I mean a hundred of 'em at least, as soon as we can get away; and get away we will." They sat listening till the horrible feast below was at an end, and everything became so silent that they concluded that the enemy must be asleep, and began to wonder that the prisoners should all crouch together in so apathetic a state. But all at once, when everything seemed most still, and half the prisoners were dozing, there came the heavy trampling of feet; the guards roused up, and in the dim light of the late evening, the bonds which secured the captives' feet were loosened, and, like a herd of cattle, they were driven down from the platform upon which the _pah_ was constructed, and along the slope to the sands, where the canoes rode lightly on the swell. Into these they were forced to climb, some getting in with alacrity, others slowly and painfully; two or three falling helplessly in the water, and then, half drowned, | has finished a meal. "They must be all drunk, Jem," whispered Don, with a fresh shudder of horror and loathing. "No, Mas' Don, 'tarn't that," said Jem, with a look of disgust. "Old Mike used to tell us stories, and most of 'em was yarns as I didn't believe; but he told us one thing as I do believe now. He said as some of the blacks in Africa would go with the hunters who killed the hippipperpothy-mouses, and when they'd killed one, they'd light a fire, and then cut off long strips of the big beast, hold 'em in the flame for a bit, and then eat 'em, and cut off more strips and eat them, and go on eating all day till they could hardly see or move." "Yes, I remember, Jem; and he said the men ate till they were drunk; and you said it was all nonsense, for a man couldn't get drunk without drink." "Yes, Mas' Don; but I was all wrong, and Mike was right. Those wretches there are as much like Mike Bannock was when he bored a hole in the rum puncheon as can be. Eating too much makes people as stupid as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here." "Knowing what you do, Jem?" "Yes, Mas' Don, knowing what I do. It's what you know too. I can see you do." Don shuddered. "Don't, Jem, don't; it's too horrid even to think about." "Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people's used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don't seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas' Don, I'd rather ha' been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming ashore; for I feel as if I can't stand this. There, listen!" There was a sound of shouting and singing from the beach below, and one of the guards tossed up his spear in a sleepy way, and shouted too, but only to subside again into a sluggish state of torpidity. "Why, Mas' Don, by-and-by they'll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?" "The same as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have a fair chance at them again, Jem, and I don't think we shall feel very sorry if we slay a few." "Sorry?" said Jem, between his teeth. "I mean a hundred of 'em at least, as soon as we can get away; and get away we will." They sat listening till the horrible feast below was at an end, and everything became so silent that they concluded that the enemy must be asleep, and began to wonder that the prisoners should all crouch together in so apathetic a state. But all at once, when everything seemed most still, and half the prisoners were dozing, there came the heavy trampling of feet; the guards roused up, and in the dim light of the late evening, the bonds which secured the captives' feet were loosened, and, like a herd of cattle, they were driven down from the platform upon which the _pah_ was constructed, and along the slope to the sands, where the canoes rode lightly on the swell. Into these they were forced to climb, some getting in with alacrity, others slowly and painfully; two or three falling helplessly in the water, and then, half drowned, being dragged in over the side. "Not a bit sorry I killed some of 'em," muttered Jem. "They arn't men, Mas' Don, but savage beasts." It did not take long, for there was plenty of room in the little fleet of canoes. The prisoners were divided, some being placed in the canoes with the plunder, and treated as if they were spoil. Others were divided among the long canoes, manned by the enemy, whose own wounded men, even to the worst, did not hesitate to take to a paddle, and fill their places. Some of the children whimpered, but an apathetic state of misery and dejection seemed to have affected even them, while in one or two cases, a blow from a paddle was sufficient to awe the poor little unfortunates into silence. As soon as the last man was in his place, a herculean chief waved his hands; one of his followers raised a great wooden trumpet, and blew a long, bellowing note; the paddles dipped almost as one into the water, and the men burst into a triumphal chorus, as, for a few hundred yards, the great war canoes which they had captured swept with their freight of | close his, and sit trembling and listening to the bursts of merriment which came up. At such times, in spite of their efforts, they could not imitate the apathy of the New Zealanders, but gazed wildly at each other, trying to make themselves believe that what they imagined was false, or else the prisoners would have shown some sign of excitement. At last Jem ceased to make any pretence about the matter. He stared speechlessly and full of misery at Don, who let his eyes rest wildly on Jem's for a time before dropping his head upon his chest, and sitting motionless. All through the rest of that hour, and hour after hour, till towards evening, did the wretched prisoners sit in despair and misery without food or water; and the sounds of merriment and feasting came loudly to where they were. The sun was descending rapidly when about half-a-dozen of the conquering tribe came up to the _pah_, with the result that those who were on guard suddenly grew wildly excited, and giving up their duties to the new comers, uttered eager shouts and rushed off in a way that was frantic in the extreme. Don and Jem again exchanged looks full of misery and despair, and then gazed with wonder and loathing at the new comers, who walked slowly about for a few minutes, and then went and leaned their backs against the palisading of the _pah_, and partially supported themselves upon their spears. "Ugh!" ejaculated Jem with a shudder as he turned away. "You wretches! Mas' Don, I felt as I lay here last night, all dull and miserable and sick, and hardly able to bear myself--I felt so miserable because I knew I must have shot some of those chaps." "So did I, Jem," sighed Don; "so did I." "Well, just now, Mas' Don, I'm just 'tother way; ay, for I wish with all my heart I'd shot the lot. Hark, there!" They listened, and could hear a burst of shouting and laughing. "That's them sentries gone down now to the feast. I say, Mas' Don, look at these here fellows." "Yes, Jem, I've been looking at them. It's horrible, and we must escape." They sat gazing at their guards again, to see that they were flushed, their eyes full, heavy, and starting, and that they were absolutely stupefied and torpid as some huge serpent which has finished a meal. "They must be all drunk, Jem," whispered Don, with a fresh shudder of horror and loathing. "No, Mas' Don, 'tarn't that," said Jem, with a look of disgust. "Old Mike used to tell us stories, and most of 'em was yarns as I didn't believe; but he told us one thing as I do believe now. He said as some of the blacks in Africa would go with the hunters who killed the hippipperpothy-mouses, and when they'd killed one, they'd light a fire, and then cut off long strips of the big beast, hold 'em in the flame for a bit, and then eat 'em, and cut off more strips and eat them, and go on eating all day till they could hardly see or move." "Yes, I remember, Jem; and he said the men ate till they were drunk; and you said it was all nonsense, for a man couldn't get drunk without drink." "Yes, Mas' Don; but I was all wrong, and Mike was right. Those wretches there are as much like Mike Bannock was when he bored a hole in the rum puncheon as can be. Eating too much makes people as stupid as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here." "Knowing what you do, Jem?" "Yes, Mas' Don, knowing what I do. It's what you know too. I can see you do." Don shuddered. "Don't, Jem, don't; it's too horrid even to think about." "Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people's used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don't seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas' Don, I'd rather ha' been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming ashore; for I feel as if I can't stand this. There, listen!" There was a sound of shouting and singing from the beach below, and one of the guards tossed up his spear in a sleepy way, and shouted too, but only to subside again into a sluggish state of torpidity. "Why, Mas' Don, by-and-by they'll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?" "The same as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have a fair chance at them again, Jem, and I don't think we shall feel very sorry if we slay a few." "Sorry?" said Jem, between his teeth. "I mean a hundred of 'em at least, as soon as we can get away; and get away we will." They sat listening till the horrible feast below was at an end, and everything became so silent that they concluded that the enemy must be asleep, and began to wonder that the prisoners should all crouch together in so apathetic a state. But all at once, when everything seemed most still, and half the prisoners were dozing, there came the heavy trampling of feet; the guards roused up, and in the dim light of the late evening, the bonds which secured the captives' feet were loosened, and, like a herd of cattle, they were driven down from the platform upon which the _pah_ was constructed, and along the slope to the sands, where the canoes rode lightly on the swell. Into these they were forced to climb, some getting in with alacrity, others slowly and painfully; two or three falling helplessly in the water, and then, half drowned, being dragged in over the side. "Not a bit sorry I killed some of 'em," muttered Jem. "They arn't men, Mas' Don, but savage beasts." It did not take long, for there was plenty of room in the little fleet of canoes. The prisoners were divided, some being placed in the canoes with the plunder, and treated as if they were spoil. Others were divided among the long canoes, manned by the enemy, whose own wounded men, even to the worst, did not hesitate to take to a paddle, and fill their places. Some of the children whimpered, but an apathetic state of misery and dejection seemed to have affected even them, while in one or two cases, a blow from a paddle was sufficient to awe the poor little unfortunates into silence. As soon as the last man was in his place, a herculean chief waved his hands; one of his followers raised a great wooden trumpet, and blew a long, bellowing note; the paddles dipped almost as one into the water, and the men burst into a triumphal chorus, as, for a few hundred yards, the great war canoes which they had captured swept with their freight of spoil at a rapid rate southward along the shore. Then the sudden burst of energy ceased, the song broke off, the speed diminished; and the men slowly dipped their paddles in a heavy, drowsy way. Every now and then one of the warriors ceased paddling, or contented himself with going through the motion; but still the great serpent-like vessels glided on, though slowly, while the darkness came on rapidly, and the water flashed as its phosphorescent inhabitants were disturbed. The darkness grew intense, but not for long. Soon a gradual lightening became visible in the east, and suddenly a flash of light glanced along the surface of the sea, as the moon slowly rose to give a weird aspect to the long row of dusky warriors sluggishly urging the great canoes onward. Don and Jem had the good fortune to be together in the largest and leading canoe; and as they sat there in silence, the strangeness of the scene appeared awful. The shore looked almost black, save where the moon illumined the mountainous background; but the sea seemed to have been turned into a pale greenish metal, flowing easily in a molten state. No one spoke, not a sigh was heard from the prisoners, who must have been suffering keenly as they cowered down in the boat. Don sat watching the weird panorama as they went along, asking himself at times if it was all real, or only the effect of some vivid dream. For it appeared to be impossible that he could have gone through what he had on the previous night, and be there now, borne who could say whither, by the successful raiders, who were moving their oars mechanically as the canoe glided on. "It must be a dream," he said to himself. "I shall awake soon, and--" "What a chance, Mas' Don!" said a low voice at his side, to prove to him that he was awake. "Chance? What chance?" said Don, starting. "I don't mean to get away, but for any other tribe to give it to them, and serve 'em as they served our poor friends; for they was friends to us, Mas' Don." "I wish the wretches could be punished," said Don sadly; "but I see no chance of that." "Ah! Wait a bit, my lad; you don't know. But what a chance it would be with them all in this state. | said as some of the blacks in Africa would go with the hunters who killed the hippipperpothy-mouses, and when they'd killed one, they'd light a fire, and then cut off long strips of the big beast, hold 'em in the flame for a bit, and then eat 'em, and cut off more strips and eat them, and go on eating all day till they could hardly see or move." "Yes, I remember, Jem; and he said the men ate till they were drunk; and you said it was all nonsense, for a man couldn't get drunk without drink." "Yes, Mas' Don; but I was all wrong, and Mike was right. Those wretches there are as much like Mike Bannock was when he bored a hole in the rum puncheon as can be. Eating too much makes people as stupid as drinking; and knowing what I do, I wishes I was in Africa and not here." "Knowing what you do, Jem?" "Yes, Mas' Don, knowing what I do. It's what you know too. I can see you do." Don shuddered. "Don't, Jem, don't; it's too horrid even to think about." "Yes, dear lad, but we must think about it. These here people's used to it, and done it theirselves, I daresay; and they don't seem to mind; but we do. Ah, Mas' Don, I'd rather ha' been a sailor all my life, or been had by the sharks when we was swimming ashore; for I feel as if I can't stand this. There, listen!" There was a sound of shouting and singing from the beach below, and one of the guards tossed up his spear in a sleepy way, and shouted too, but only to subside again into a sluggish state of torpidity. "Why, Mas' Don, by-and-by they'll all be asleep, and if we tried, you and me might get our arms and legs undone, and take a spear apiece, and kill the lot. What do you say?" "The same as you will, if you think, Jem," replied Don. "No."<|quote|>"No, it is, Mas' Don, of course. Englishmen couldn't do such a thing as that."</|quote|>"But only let us have a fair chance at them again, Jem, and I don't think we shall feel very sorry if we slay a few." "Sorry?" said Jem, between his teeth. "I mean a hundred of 'em at least, as soon as we can get away; and get away we will." They sat listening till the horrible feast below was at an end, and everything became so silent that they concluded that the enemy must be asleep, and began to wonder that the prisoners should all crouch together in so apathetic a state. But all at once, when everything seemed most still, and half the prisoners were dozing, there came the heavy trampling of feet; the guards roused up, and in the dim light of the late evening, the bonds which secured the captives' feet were loosened, and, like a herd of cattle, they were driven down from the platform upon which the _pah_ was constructed, and along the slope to the sands, where the canoes rode lightly on the swell. Into these they were forced to climb, some getting in with alacrity, others slowly and painfully; two or three falling helplessly in the water, and then, half drowned, being dragged in over the side. "Not a bit sorry I killed some of 'em," muttered Jem. "They arn't men, Mas' Don, but savage beasts." It did not take long, for there was plenty of room in the little fleet of canoes. The prisoners were divided, some being placed in the canoes with the plunder, and treated as if they were spoil. Others were divided among the long canoes, manned by the enemy, whose own wounded men, even to the worst, did not hesitate to take to a paddle, and fill their places. Some of the children whimpered, but an apathetic state of misery and dejection seemed to have affected even them, while in one or two cases, a blow from a paddle was sufficient to awe the poor little unfortunates into silence. As soon as the last man was in his place, a herculean chief waved his hands; one of his followers raised a great wooden trumpet, and blew a long, bellowing note; the paddles dipped almost as one into the water, and the men burst into a triumphal chorus, as, for a few hundred yards, the great war canoes which they had captured swept with their freight of spoil at a rapid rate southward along the shore. Then the sudden burst of energy ceased, the song broke off, the speed diminished; and the men slowly dipped their paddles in a heavy, drowsy way. Every now and then one of the warriors ceased paddling, or contented himself with going through the motion; but still | Don Lavington |
"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more." | Newland Archer | a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue | Square, repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish | he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on him through tears. He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it) met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City. It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big reverberating station. As he paced the platform, | each other's meanings more deeply than either cared to go. "Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated your offering to do it." "Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped, and as he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on him through tears. He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it) met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City. It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big reverberating station. As he paced the platform, waiting for the Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York. They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of | wondering where he had read that clever liars give details, but that the cleverest do not. It did not hurt him half as much to tell May an untruth as to see her trying to pretend that she had not detected him. "I'm not going till later on: luckily for the convenience of your family," he continued, taking base refuge in sarcasm. As he spoke he felt that she was looking at him, and he turned his eyes to hers in order not to appear to be avoiding them. Their glances met for a second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings more deeply than either cared to go. "Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated your offering to do it." "Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped, and as he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on him through tears. He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it) met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City. It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big reverberating station. As he paced the platform, waiting for the Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York. They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels. "I don't care which of their visions comes true," Archer mused, "as long as the tunnel isn't built yet." In his senseless school-boy happiness he pictured Madame Olenska's descent from the train, his discovery of her a long way off, among the throngs of meaningless faces, her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage, their slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses, laden carts, vociferating teamsters, and then | Square, where he could pick up a Broadway car to carry him to the office. As she settled herself in her corner she said: "I didn't want to worry Mamma by raising fresh obstacles; but how can you meet Ellen tomorrow, and bring her back to New York, when you're going to Washington?" "Oh, I'm not going," Archer answered. "Not going? Why, what's happened?" Her voice was as clear as a bell, and full of wifely solicitude. "The case is off--postponed." "Postponed? How odd! I saw a note this morning from Mr. Letterblair to Mamma saying that he was going to Washington tomorrow for the big patent case that he was to argue before the Supreme Court. You said it was a patent case, didn't you?" "Well--that's it: the whole office can't go. Letterblair decided to go this morning." "Then it's NOT postponed?" she continued, with an insistence so unlike her that he felt the blood rising to his face, as if he were blushing for her unwonted lapse from all the traditional delicacies. "No: but my going is," he answered, cursing the unnecessary explanations that he had given when he had announced his intention of going to Washington, and wondering where he had read that clever liars give details, but that the cleverest do not. It did not hurt him half as much to tell May an untruth as to see her trying to pretend that she had not detected him. "I'm not going till later on: luckily for the convenience of your family," he continued, taking base refuge in sarcasm. As he spoke he felt that she was looking at him, and he turned his eyes to hers in order not to appear to be avoiding them. Their glances met for a second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings more deeply than either cared to go. "Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated your offering to do it." "Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped, and as he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on him through tears. He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it) met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City. It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big reverberating station. As he paced the platform, waiting for the Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York. They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels. "I don't care which of their visions comes true," Archer mused, "as long as the tunnel isn't built yet." In his senseless school-boy happiness he pictured Madame Olenska's descent from the train, his discovery of her a long way off, among the throngs of meaningless faces, her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage, their slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses, laden carts, vociferating teamsters, and then the startling quiet of the ferry-boat, where they would sit side by side under the snow, in the motionless carriage, while the earth seemed to glide away under them, rolling to the other side of the sun. It was incredible, the number of things he had to say to her, and in what eloquent order they were forming themselves on his lips ... The clanging and groaning of the train came nearer, and it staggered slowly into the station like a prey-laden monster into its lair. Archer pushed forward, elbowing through the crowd, and staring blindly into window after window of the high-hung carriages. And then, suddenly, he saw Madame Olenska's pale and surprised face close at hand, and had again the mortified sensation of having forgotten what she looked like. They reached each other, their hands met, and he drew her arm through his. "This way--I have the carriage," he said. After that it all happened as he had dreamed. He helped her into the brougham with her bags, and had afterward the vague recollection of having properly reassured her about her grandmother and given her a summary of the Beaufort situation (he was struck by the softness of | was Mrs. Welland's turn to grow pale as the endless consequences of her blunder unrolled themselves before her; but she managed to laugh, and take a second helping of scalloped oysters, before she said, struggling back into her old armour of cheerfulness: "My dear, how could you imagine such a thing? I only meant that, after the decided stand Mamma took about its being Ellen's duty to go back to her husband, it seems strange that she should be seized with this sudden whim to see her, when there are half a dozen other grandchildren that she might have asked for. But we must never forget that Mamma, in spite of her wonderful vitality, is a very old woman." Mr. Welland's brow remained clouded, and it was evident that his perturbed imagination had fastened at once on this last remark. "Yes: your mother's a very old woman; and for all we know Bencomb may not be as successful with very old people. As you say, my dear, it's always one thing after another; and in another ten or fifteen years I suppose I shall have the pleasing duty of looking about for a new doctor. It's always better to make such a change before it's absolutely necessary." And having arrived at this Spartan decision Mr. Welland firmly took up his fork. "But all the while," Mrs. Welland began again, as she rose from the luncheon-table, and led the way into the wilderness of purple satin and malachite known as the back drawing-room, "I don't see how Ellen's to be got here tomorrow evening; and I do like to have things settled for at least twenty-four hours ahead." Archer turned from the fascinated contemplation of a small painting representing two Cardinals carousing, in an octagonal ebony frame set with medallions of onyx. "Shall I fetch her?" he proposed. "I can easily get away from the office in time to meet the brougham at the ferry, if May will send it there." His heart was beating excitedly as he spoke. Mrs. Welland heaved a sigh of gratitude, and May, who had moved away to the window, turned to shed on him a beam of approval. "So you see, Mamma, everything WILL be settled twenty-four hours in advance," she said, stooping over to kiss her mother's troubled forehead. May's brougham awaited her at the door, and she was to drive Archer to Union Square, where he could pick up a Broadway car to carry him to the office. As she settled herself in her corner she said: "I didn't want to worry Mamma by raising fresh obstacles; but how can you meet Ellen tomorrow, and bring her back to New York, when you're going to Washington?" "Oh, I'm not going," Archer answered. "Not going? Why, what's happened?" Her voice was as clear as a bell, and full of wifely solicitude. "The case is off--postponed." "Postponed? How odd! I saw a note this morning from Mr. Letterblair to Mamma saying that he was going to Washington tomorrow for the big patent case that he was to argue before the Supreme Court. You said it was a patent case, didn't you?" "Well--that's it: the whole office can't go. Letterblair decided to go this morning." "Then it's NOT postponed?" she continued, with an insistence so unlike her that he felt the blood rising to his face, as if he were blushing for her unwonted lapse from all the traditional delicacies. "No: but my going is," he answered, cursing the unnecessary explanations that he had given when he had announced his intention of going to Washington, and wondering where he had read that clever liars give details, but that the cleverest do not. It did not hurt him half as much to tell May an untruth as to see her trying to pretend that she had not detected him. "I'm not going till later on: luckily for the convenience of your family," he continued, taking base refuge in sarcasm. As he spoke he felt that she was looking at him, and he turned his eyes to hers in order not to appear to be avoiding them. Their glances met for a second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings more deeply than either cared to go. "Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated your offering to do it." "Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped, and as he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on him through tears. He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it) met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City. It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big reverberating station. As he paced the platform, waiting for the Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York. They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels. "I don't care which of their visions comes true," Archer mused, "as long as the tunnel isn't built yet." In his senseless school-boy happiness he pictured Madame Olenska's descent from the train, his discovery of her a long way off, among the throngs of meaningless faces, her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage, their slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses, laden carts, vociferating teamsters, and then the startling quiet of the ferry-boat, where they would sit side by side under the snow, in the motionless carriage, while the earth seemed to glide away under them, rolling to the other side of the sun. It was incredible, the number of things he had to say to her, and in what eloquent order they were forming themselves on his lips ... The clanging and groaning of the train came nearer, and it staggered slowly into the station like a prey-laden monster into its lair. Archer pushed forward, elbowing through the crowd, and staring blindly into window after window of the high-hung carriages. And then, suddenly, he saw Madame Olenska's pale and surprised face close at hand, and had again the mortified sensation of having forgotten what she looked like. They reached each other, their hands met, and he drew her arm through his. "This way--I have the carriage," he said. After that it all happened as he had dreamed. He helped her into the brougham with her bags, and had afterward the vague recollection of having properly reassured her about her grandmother and given her a summary of the Beaufort situation (he was struck by the softness of her: "Poor Regina!"). Meanwhile the carriage had worked its way out of the coil about the station, and they were crawling down the slippery incline to the wharf, menaced by swaying coal-carts, bewildered horses, dishevelled express-wagons, and an empty hearse--ah, that hearse! She shut her eyes as it passed, and clutched at Archer's hand. "If only it doesn't mean--poor Granny!" "Oh, no, no--she's much better--she's all right, really. There--we've passed it!" he exclaimed, as if that made all the difference. Her hand remained in his, and as the carriage lurched across the gang-plank onto the ferry he bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove, and kissed her palm as if he had kissed a relic. She disengaged herself with a faint smile, and he said: "You didn't expect me today?" "Oh, no." "I meant to go to Washington to see you. I'd made all my arrangements--I very nearly crossed you in the train." "Oh--" she exclaimed, as if terrified by the narrowness of their escape. "Do you know--I hardly remembered you?" "Hardly remembered me?" "I mean: how shall I explain? I--it's always so. EACH TIME YOU HAPPEN TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN." "Oh, yes: I know! I know!" "Does it--do I too: to you?" he insisted. She nodded, looking out of the window. "Ellen--Ellen--Ellen!" She made no answer, and he sat in silence, watching her profile grow indistinct against the snow-streaked dusk beyond the window. What had she been doing in all those four long months, he wondered? How little they knew of each other, after all! The precious moments were slipping away, but he had forgotten everything that he had meant to say to her and could only helplessly brood on the mystery of their remoteness and their proximity, which seemed to be symbolised by the fact of their sitting so close to each other, and yet being unable to see each other's faces. "What a pretty carriage! Is it May's?" she asked, suddenly turning her face from the window. "Yes." "It was May who sent you to fetch me, then? How kind of her!" He made no answer for a moment; then he said explosively: "Your husband's secretary came to see me the day after we met in Boston." In his brief letter to her he had made no allusion to M. Riviere's visit, and his intention had been to bury the incident in his bosom. But her | May, who had moved away to the window, turned to shed on him a beam of approval. "So you see, Mamma, everything WILL be settled twenty-four hours in advance," she said, stooping over to kiss her mother's troubled forehead. May's brougham awaited her at the door, and she was to drive Archer to Union Square, where he could pick up a Broadway car to carry him to the office. As she settled herself in her corner she said: "I didn't want to worry Mamma by raising fresh obstacles; but how can you meet Ellen tomorrow, and bring her back to New York, when you're going to Washington?" "Oh, I'm not going," Archer answered. "Not going? Why, what's happened?" Her voice was as clear as a bell, and full of wifely solicitude. "The case is off--postponed." "Postponed? How odd! I saw a note this morning from Mr. Letterblair to Mamma saying that he was going to Washington tomorrow for the big patent case that he was to argue before the Supreme Court. You said it was a patent case, didn't you?" "Well--that's it: the whole office can't go. Letterblair decided to go this morning." "Then it's NOT postponed?" she continued, with an insistence so unlike her that he felt the blood rising to his face, as if he were blushing for her unwonted lapse from all the traditional delicacies. "No: but my going is," he answered, cursing the unnecessary explanations that he had given when he had announced his intention of going to Washington, and wondering where he had read that clever liars give details, but that the cleverest do not. It did not hurt him half as much to tell May an untruth as to see her trying to pretend that she had not detected him. "I'm not going till later on: luckily for the convenience of your family," he continued, taking base refuge in sarcasm. As he spoke he felt that she was looking at him, and he turned his eyes to hers in order not to appear to be avoiding them. Their glances met for a second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings more deeply than either cared to go. "Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed, "that you should be able to meet Ellen after all; you saw how much Mamma appreciated your offering to do it." "Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped, and as he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," she said, her eyes so blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on him through tears. He turned away and hurried across Union Square, repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant:<|quote|>"It's all of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's all of two hours--and it may be more."</|quote|>XXIX. His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding varnish still on it) met Archer at the ferry, and conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus in Jersey City. It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps were lit in the big reverberating station. As he paced the platform, waiting for the Washington express, he remembered that there were people who thought there would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run straight into New York. They were of the brotherhood of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels. "I don't care which of their visions comes true," Archer mused, "as long as the tunnel isn't built yet." In his senseless school-boy happiness he pictured Madame Olenska's descent from the train, his discovery of her a long way off, among the throngs of meaningless faces, her clinging to his arm as he guided her to the carriage, their slow approach to the wharf among slipping horses, laden carts, vociferating teamsters, and then the startling quiet of the ferry-boat, where they would sit side by side under the snow, in the motionless carriage, while the earth seemed to glide away under them, rolling to the other side of the sun. It was incredible, the number of things he had to say to her, and in what eloquent order they were forming themselves on his lips ... The clanging and groaning of the train came nearer, and it staggered slowly into the station like a prey-laden monster into its lair. Archer pushed forward, elbowing through the crowd, and staring blindly into window after window of the high-hung carriages. And | The Age Of Innocence |
asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows. | No speaker | Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have | said Lord Henry languidly. "Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. | humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." "Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said Lord Henry languidly. "Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso s grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? | I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." "Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said Lord Henry languidly. "Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso s grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him." "Kelso s grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso s grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe | "Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything." "Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I don t want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor s tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information." "Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." "Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said Lord Henry languidly. "Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso s grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him." "Kelso s grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso s grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law in public paid him, sir, to do it, paid him | collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth. In politics he was a Tory, except when the Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the country was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices. When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_. "Well, Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so early? I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till five." "Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get something out of you." "Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. "Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything." "Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I don t want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor s tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information." "Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." "Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said Lord Henry languidly. "Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso s grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him." "Kelso s grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso s grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law in public paid him, sir, to do it, paid him and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. The girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had forgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he must be a good-looking chap." "He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry. "I hope he will fall into proper hands," continued the old man. "He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing by him. His mother had money, too. All the Selby property came to her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I | better for keeping your promises. He always breaks his own. I beg you not to go." Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head. "I entreat you." The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them from the tea-table with an amused smile. "I must go, Basil," he answered. "Very well," said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on the tray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had better lose no time. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. Come and see me soon. Come to-morrow." "Certainly." "You won t forget?" "No, of course not," cried Dorian. "And ... Harry!" "Yes, Basil?" "Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning." "I have forgotten it." "I trust you." "I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing. "Come, Mr. Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place. Good-bye, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon." As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a sofa, and a look of pain came into his face. CHAPTER III. At half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called selfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was considered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him. His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a capricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at Paris, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure. The son, who had been his father s secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat foolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months later to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing. He had two large town houses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and took most of his meals at his club. He paid some attention to the management of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth. In politics he was a Tory, except when the Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the country was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices. When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_. "Well, Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so early? I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till five." "Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get something out of you." "Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. "Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything." "Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I don t want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor s tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information." "Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." "Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said Lord Henry languidly. "Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso s grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him." "Kelso s grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso s grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law in public paid him, sir, to do it, paid him and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. The girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had forgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he must be a good-looking chap." "He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry. "I hope he will fall into proper hands," continued the old man. "He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing by him. His mother had money, too. All the Selby property came to her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didn t dare show my face at Court for a month. I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies." "I don t know," answered Lord Henry. "I fancy that the boy will be well off. He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so. And ... his mother was very beautiful?" "Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw, Harry. What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could understand. She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was mad after her. She was romantic, though. All the women of that family were. The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful. Carlington went on his knees to her. Told me so himself. She laughed at him, and there wasn t a girl in London at the time who wasn t after him. And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an American? Ain t English girls good enough for him?" "It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George." "I ll back English women against the world, Harry," said Lord Fermor, striking the table with his fist. "The betting is on the Americans." "They don t last, I am told," muttered his uncle. "A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase. They take things flying. I don t think Dartmoor has a chance." "Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman. "Has she got any?" Lord Henry shook his head. "American girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their past," he said, rising to go. "They are pork-packers, I suppose?" "I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor s sake. I am told that pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics." "Is she pretty?" "She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm." "Why can t these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women." "It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it," said Lord Henry. "Good-bye, Uncle George. I shall be late for lunch, if I stop any | and he always said that the country was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices. When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_. "Well, Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so early? I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till five." "Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get something out of you." "Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. "Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything." "Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I don t want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor s tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information." "Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." "Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said Lord Henry languidly. "Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?"<|quote|>asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.</|quote|>"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso s grandson. His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him." "Kelso s grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso s grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult his son-in-law in public paid him, sir, to do it, paid him and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. The girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had forgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he must be a good-looking chap." "He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry. "I hope he will fall into proper hands," continued the old man. "He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing by him. His mother had money, too. All the Selby property came to her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didn t dare show my face at Court for a month. I hope he treated | The Picture Of Dorian Gray |
"Tell me about yourself," | Helen | as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen | part her from old habits as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was lingering | with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was lingering over the furniture. "There s nothing to tell." "But your marriage has been happy, Meg?" "Yes, but I don t feel inclined to talk." "You feel as I do." "Not that, but I can t." "No more can I. It | Meg, once again, I m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with your English life--no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a visit from me at Ducie Street! It s unthinkable." Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was lingering over the furniture. "There s nothing to tell." "But your marriage has been happy, Meg?" "Yes, but I don t feel inclined to talk." "You feel as I do." "Not that, but I can t." "No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying." Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection survived. | of a dead house. The hall seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the Wilcoxes own things." "Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband lent it on condition we--but by a mistake all our things were unpacked, and Miss Avery, instead of--" She stopped. "Look here, I can t go on like this. I warn you I won t. Helen, why should you be so miserably unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?" "I don t hate him now," said Helen. "I have stopped being a schoolgirl, and, Meg, once again, I m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with your English life--no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a visit from me at Ducie Street! It s unthinkable." Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was lingering over the furniture. "There s nothing to tell." "But your marriage has been happy, Meg?" "Yes, but I don t feel inclined to talk." "You feel as I do." "Not that, but I can t." "No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying." Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection survived. "Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?" "You mean that you want to go away from me?" "I suppose so--dear old lady! it isn t any use. I knew we should have nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later." "Certainly, dearest." "For that is all we can do." It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen s common sense; Monica had been extraordinarily good for her. "I am glad to have seen you and the things." She looked | kindness. "I shall always have a room for you when you can be spared, and the longer you can be with me the better. But you haven t understood yet, Meg, and of course it is very difficult for you. This is a shock to you. It isn t to me, who have been thinking over our futures for many months, and they won t be changed by a slight contretemps, such as this. I cannot live in England." "Helen, you ve not forgiven me for my treachery. You COULDN T talk like this to me if you had." "Oh, Meg dear, why do we talk at all?" She dropped a book and sighed wearily. Then, recovering herself, she said: "Tell me, how is it that all the books are down here?" "Series of mistakes." "And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked." "All." "Who lives here, then?" "No one." "I suppose you are letting it, though." "The house is dead," said Margaret, with a frown. "Why worry on about it?" "But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest in life. I am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn t the feel of a dead house. The hall seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the Wilcoxes own things." "Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband lent it on condition we--but by a mistake all our things were unpacked, and Miss Avery, instead of--" She stopped. "Look here, I can t go on like this. I warn you I won t. Helen, why should you be so miserably unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?" "I don t hate him now," said Helen. "I have stopped being a schoolgirl, and, Meg, once again, I m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with your English life--no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a visit from me at Ducie Street! It s unthinkable." Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was lingering over the furniture. "There s nothing to tell." "But your marriage has been happy, Meg?" "Yes, but I don t feel inclined to talk." "You feel as I do." "Not that, but I can t." "No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying." Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection survived. "Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?" "You mean that you want to go away from me?" "I suppose so--dear old lady! it isn t any use. I knew we should have nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later." "Certainly, dearest." "For that is all we can do." It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen s common sense; Monica had been extraordinarily good for her. "I am glad to have seen you and the things." She looked at the bookcase lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past. Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: "The car has gone, and here s your cab." She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The spring had never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was leaning on the gate, called out, "Please, lady, a message," and handed her Henry s visiting-card through the bars. "How did this come?" she asked. Crane had returned with it almost at once. She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with instructions in domestic French. When she and her sister had talked she was to come back for the night to Dolly s. "Il faut dormir sur ce sujet." while Helen was to be found une comfortable chambre a l hotel. The final sentence displeased her greatly until she remembered that the Charles s had only one spare room, and so could not invite a third guest. "Henry would have done what he could," she interpreted. Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open, she lost her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going from bookcase to table. She grew | but even then--I haven t behaved worthily." Helen selected another book. "I ought not to have consulted any one. What would our father have thought of me?" She did not think of questioning her sister, or of rebuking her. Both might be necessary in the future, but she had first to purge a greater crime than any that Helen could have committed--that want of confidence that is the work of the devil. "Yes, I am annoyed," replied Helen. "My wishes should have been respected. I would have gone through this meeting if it was necessary, but after Aunt Juley recovered, it was not necessary. Planning my life, as I now have to do." "Come away from those books," called Margaret. "Helen, do talk to me." "I was just saying that I have stopped living haphazard. One can t go through a great deal of --" "--she left out the noun--" "without planning one s actions in advance. I am going to have a child in June, and in the first place conversations, discussions, excitement, are not good for me. I will go through them if necessary, but only then. In the second place I have no right to trouble people. I cannot fit in with England as I know it. I have done something that the English never pardon. It would not be right for them to pardon it. So I must live where I am not known." "But why didn t you tell me, dearest?" "Yes," replied Helen judicially. "I might have, but decided to wait." "I believe you would never have told me." "Oh yes, I should. We have taken a flat in Munich." Margaret glanced out of the window. "By we I mean myself and Monica. But for her, I am and have been and always wish to be alone." "I have not heard of Monica." "You wouldn t have. She s an Italian--by birth at least. She makes her living by journalism. I met her originally on Garda. Monica is much the best person to see me through." "You are very fond of her, then." "She has been extraordinarily sensible with me." Margaret guessed at Monica s type--"Italiano Inglesiato" they had named it--the crude feminist of the South, whom one respects but avoids. And Helen had turned to it in her need! "You must not think that we shall never meet," said Helen, with a measured kindness. "I shall always have a room for you when you can be spared, and the longer you can be with me the better. But you haven t understood yet, Meg, and of course it is very difficult for you. This is a shock to you. It isn t to me, who have been thinking over our futures for many months, and they won t be changed by a slight contretemps, such as this. I cannot live in England." "Helen, you ve not forgiven me for my treachery. You COULDN T talk like this to me if you had." "Oh, Meg dear, why do we talk at all?" She dropped a book and sighed wearily. Then, recovering herself, she said: "Tell me, how is it that all the books are down here?" "Series of mistakes." "And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked." "All." "Who lives here, then?" "No one." "I suppose you are letting it, though." "The house is dead," said Margaret, with a frown. "Why worry on about it?" "But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest in life. I am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn t the feel of a dead house. The hall seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the Wilcoxes own things." "Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband lent it on condition we--but by a mistake all our things were unpacked, and Miss Avery, instead of--" She stopped. "Look here, I can t go on like this. I warn you I won t. Helen, why should you be so miserably unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?" "I don t hate him now," said Helen. "I have stopped being a schoolgirl, and, Meg, once again, I m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with your English life--no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a visit from me at Ducie Street! It s unthinkable." Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was lingering over the furniture. "There s nothing to tell." "But your marriage has been happy, Meg?" "Yes, but I don t feel inclined to talk." "You feel as I do." "Not that, but I can t." "No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying." Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection survived. "Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?" "You mean that you want to go away from me?" "I suppose so--dear old lady! it isn t any use. I knew we should have nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later." "Certainly, dearest." "For that is all we can do." It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen s common sense; Monica had been extraordinarily good for her. "I am glad to have seen you and the things." She looked at the bookcase lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past. Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: "The car has gone, and here s your cab." She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The spring had never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was leaning on the gate, called out, "Please, lady, a message," and handed her Henry s visiting-card through the bars. "How did this come?" she asked. Crane had returned with it almost at once. She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with instructions in domestic French. When she and her sister had talked she was to come back for the night to Dolly s. "Il faut dormir sur ce sujet." while Helen was to be found une comfortable chambre a l hotel. The final sentence displeased her greatly until she remembered that the Charles s had only one spare room, and so could not invite a third guest. "Henry would have done what he could," she interpreted. Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open, she lost her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going from bookcase to table. She grew more like the old Helen, irresponsible and charming. "This IS Mr. Wilcox s house?" she inquired. "Surely you remember Howards End?" "Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours now." "Miss Avery was extraordinary," said Margaret, her own spirits lightening a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of disloyalty. But it brought her relief, and she yielded to it. "She loved Mrs. Wilcox, and would rather furnish her home with our things than think of it empty. In consequence here are all the library books." "Not all the books. She hasn t unpacked the Art books, in which she may show her sense. And we never used to have the sword here." "The sword looks well, though." "Magnificent." "Yes, doesn t it?" "Where s the piano, Meg?" "I warehoused that in London. Why?" "Nothing." "Curious, too, that the carpet fits." "The carpet s a mistake," announced Helen. "I know that we had it in London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too beautiful." "You still have a mania for under-furnishing. Would you care to come into the dining-room before you start? There s no carpet there." They went in, and each minute their talk became more natural. "Oh, WHAT a place for mother s chiffonier!" cried Helen. "Look at the chairs, though." "Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn t it?" "North-west." "Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt the sun. Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm." "But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just--" "Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the lawn." Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it. "Ye--es. The window s too high." "Try a drawing-room chair." "No, I don t like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise." "Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You re perfectly right. It s a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it nice for women. Men don t know what we want--" "And never will." "I don t agree. In two thousand years they ll know. Look where Tibby spilt the soup." "Coffee. It was coffee surely." Helen shook her head. "Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given coffee at that | all the books are down here?" "Series of mistakes." "And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked." "All." "Who lives here, then?" "No one." "I suppose you are letting it, though." "The house is dead," said Margaret, with a frown. "Why worry on about it?" "But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest in life. I am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn t the feel of a dead house. The hall seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the Wilcoxes own things." "Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband lent it on condition we--but by a mistake all our things were unpacked, and Miss Avery, instead of--" She stopped. "Look here, I can t go on like this. I warn you I won t. Helen, why should you be so miserably unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?" "I don t hate him now," said Helen. "I have stopped being a schoolgirl, and, Meg, once again, I m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with your English life--no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a visit from me at Ducie Street! It s unthinkable." Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as well as old friends.<|quote|>"Tell me about yourself,"</|quote|>said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was lingering over the furniture. "There s nothing to tell." "But your marriage has been happy, Meg?" "Yes, but I don t feel inclined to talk." "You feel as I do." "Not that, but I can t." "No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying." Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection survived. "Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?" "You mean that you want to go away from me?" "I suppose so--dear old lady! it isn t any use. I knew we should have nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later." "Certainly, dearest." "For that is all we can do." It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen s common sense; Monica had been extraordinarily good for her. "I am glad to have seen you and the things." She looked at the bookcase lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past. Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: "The car has gone, and here s your cab." She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The spring had never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was leaning on the gate, called out, "Please, lady, a message," and handed her Henry s visiting-card through the bars. "How did this come?" she asked. Crane had returned with it almost at once. She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with instructions in domestic French. When she and her sister had talked she was to come back for the night to Dolly s. "Il faut dormir sur ce sujet." while Helen was to be found une comfortable chambre a l hotel. The final sentence displeased her greatly until she remembered that the Charles s had only one spare room, and so could not invite a third guest. "Henry would have done what he could," she interpreted. Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open, she lost her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going from bookcase to table. She grew more like the old Helen, irresponsible and charming. "This IS Mr. Wilcox s house?" she inquired. "Surely you remember Howards End?" "Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours now." "Miss Avery was extraordinary," said Margaret, her own spirits lightening a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of disloyalty. But it brought her relief, and she yielded to it. "She loved Mrs. Wilcox, and would rather furnish her home with our things than think of it empty. In consequence here are all the library books." "Not all the books. She hasn t unpacked the | Howards End |
"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book." | Mr Todd | asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * | matter of fact, I was asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * They finished _Dombey and Son_. | with them. It is easier that you say anything you wish through me. You realize, do you not, that they would do nothing without my authority. They regard themselves, quite rightly in many cases, as my children." "Well, as a matter of fact, I was asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * They finished _Dombey and Son_. Nearly a year had passed since Tony had left England, and his gloomy foreboding of permanent exile became suddenly acute when, between the pages of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, he found a document written in pencil in irregular characters. Year 1919. I | gun and a hat and a few other recognizable articles of trade. One of the women giggled but no one gave any sign of comprehension, and he went away unsatisfied. At their mid-day meal Mr Todd said, "Mr Last, the Indians tell me that you have been trying to speak with them. It is easier that you say anything you wish through me. You realize, do you not, that they would do nothing without my authority. They regard themselves, quite rightly in many cases, as my children." "Well, as a matter of fact, I was asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * They finished _Dombey and Son_. Nearly a year had passed since Tony had left England, and his gloomy foreboding of permanent exile became suddenly acute when, between the pages of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, he found a document written in pencil in irregular characters. Year 1919. I James Todd of Brazil do swear to Barnabas Washington of Georgetown that if he finish this book in fact Martin Chuzzlewit I will let him go away back as soon as finished. There followed a heavy pencil X and after it: _Mr Todd made this mark signed Barnabas Washington_. "Mr | aimless as he could, strolled across the savannah to the group of Indian houses. There were four or five Pie-wies sitting in one of the doorways. They did not look up as he approached them. He addressed them in the few words of Macushi he had acquired during the journey but they made no sign whether they understood him or not. Then he drew a sketch of a canoe in the sand, he went through some vague motions of carpentry, pointed from them to him, then made motions of giving something to them and scratched out the outlines of a gun and a hat and a few other recognizable articles of trade. One of the women giggled but no one gave any sign of comprehension, and he went away unsatisfied. At their mid-day meal Mr Todd said, "Mr Last, the Indians tell me that you have been trying to speak with them. It is easier that you say anything you wish through me. You realize, do you not, that they would do nothing without my authority. They regard themselves, quite rightly in many cases, as my children." "Well, as a matter of fact, I was asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * They finished _Dombey and Son_. Nearly a year had passed since Tony had left England, and his gloomy foreboding of permanent exile became suddenly acute when, between the pages of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, he found a document written in pencil in irregular characters. Year 1919. I James Todd of Brazil do swear to Barnabas Washington of Georgetown that if he finish this book in fact Martin Chuzzlewit I will let him go away back as soon as finished. There followed a heavy pencil X and after it: _Mr Todd made this mark signed Barnabas Washington_. "Mr Todd," said Tony, "I must speak frankly. You saved my life, and when I get back to civilization I will reward you to the best of my ability. I will give you anything within reason. But at present you are keeping me here against my will. I demand to be released." "But, my friend, what is keeping you? You are under no restraint. Go when you like." "You know very well that I can't get away without your help." "In that case you must humour an old man. Read me another chapter." "Mr Todd, I swear by anything you like | have shown is amply repaid by your reading of Dickens. Do not let us mention the subject again." "Well, I'm very glad you have enjoyed it. I have, too. But I really must be thinking of getting back..." "Yes," said Mr Todd. "The black man was like that. He thought of it all the time. But he died here..." Twice during the next day Tony opened the subject, but his host was evasive. Finally, he said, "Forgive me, Mr Todd, but I really must press the point. When can I get a boat?" "There is no boat." "Well, the Indians can build one." "You must wait for the rains. There is not enough water in the river now." "How long will that be?" "A month... two months..." They had finished _Bleak House_ and were nearing the end of _Dombey and Son_ when the rain came. "Now it is time to make preparations to go." "Oh, that is impossible. The Indians will not make a boat during the rainy season--it is one of their superstitions." "You might have told me." "Did I not mention it? I forgot." Next morning Tony went out alone while his host was busy, and, looking as aimless as he could, strolled across the savannah to the group of Indian houses. There were four or five Pie-wies sitting in one of the doorways. They did not look up as he approached them. He addressed them in the few words of Macushi he had acquired during the journey but they made no sign whether they understood him or not. Then he drew a sketch of a canoe in the sand, he went through some vague motions of carpentry, pointed from them to him, then made motions of giving something to them and scratched out the outlines of a gun and a hat and a few other recognizable articles of trade. One of the women giggled but no one gave any sign of comprehension, and he went away unsatisfied. At their mid-day meal Mr Todd said, "Mr Last, the Indians tell me that you have been trying to speak with them. It is easier that you say anything you wish through me. You realize, do you not, that they would do nothing without my authority. They regard themselves, quite rightly in many cases, as my children." "Well, as a matter of fact, I was asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * They finished _Dombey and Son_. Nearly a year had passed since Tony had left England, and his gloomy foreboding of permanent exile became suddenly acute when, between the pages of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, he found a document written in pencil in irregular characters. Year 1919. I James Todd of Brazil do swear to Barnabas Washington of Georgetown that if he finish this book in fact Martin Chuzzlewit I will let him go away back as soon as finished. There followed a heavy pencil X and after it: _Mr Todd made this mark signed Barnabas Washington_. "Mr Todd," said Tony, "I must speak frankly. You saved my life, and when I get back to civilization I will reward you to the best of my ability. I will give you anything within reason. But at present you are keeping me here against my will. I demand to be released." "But, my friend, what is keeping you? You are under no restraint. Go when you like." "You know very well that I can't get away without your help." "In that case you must humour an old man. Read me another chapter." "Mr Todd, I swear by anything you like that when I get to Man?os I will find someone to take my place. I will pay a man to read to you all day." "But I have no need of another man. You read so well." "I have read for the last time." "I hope not," said Mr Todd politely. That evening at supper only one plate of dried meat and farine was brought in and Mr Todd ate alone. Tony lay without speaking, staring at the thatch. Next day at noon a single plate was put before Mr Todd but with it lay his gun, cocked, on his knee, as he ate. Tony resumed the reading of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ where it had been interrupted. Weeks passed hopelessly. They read _Nicholas Nickleby_ and _Little Dorrit_ and _Oliver Twist_. Then a stranger arrived in the savannah, a half-caste prospector, one of that lonely order of men who wander for a lifetime through the forests, tracing the little streams, sifting the gravel and, ounce by ounce, filling the little leather sack of gold dust, more often than not dying of exposure and starvation with five hundred dollars worth of gold hung round their necks. Mr Todd was vexed at his arrival, | the jokes and at some passages which did not seem humorous to Tony, asking him to repeat them two or three times, and later at the description of the sufferings of the outcasts in "Tom-all-alone's" tears ran down his cheeks into his beard. His comments on the story were usually simple. "I think the Dedlock is a very proud man," or, "Mrs Jellyby does not take enough care of her children." Tony enjoyed the readings almost as much as he did. At the end of the first day the old man said, "You read beautifully, with a far better accent than the black man. And you explain better. It is almost as though my father were here again." And always at the end of a session he thanked his guest courteously. "I enjoyed that _very_ much. It was an extremely distressing chapter. But, if I remember it rightly, it will all turn out well." By the time that they were in the second volume, however, the novelty of the old man's delight had begun to wane, and Tony was feeling strong enough to be restless. He touched more than once on the subject of his departure, asking about canoes and rains and the possibility of finding guides. But Mr Todd seemed obtuse and paid no attention to these hints. One day, running his thumb through the pages of _Bleak House_ that remained to be read, Tony said, "We still have a lot to get through. I hope I shall be able to finish it before I go." "Oh yes," said Mr Todd. "Do not disturb yourself about that. You will have time to finish it, my friend." For the first time Tony noticed something slightly menacing in his host's manner. That evening at supper, a brief meal of farine and dried beef, eaten just before sundown, Tony renewed the subject. "You know, Mr Todd, the time has come when I must be thinking about getting back to civilization. I have already imposed myself on your hospitality far too long." Mr Todd bent over the plate, crunching mouthfuls of farine, but made no reply. "How soon do you think I shall be able to get a boat?... I said, how soon do you think I shall be able to get a boat? I appreciate all your kindness to me more than I can say, but..." "My friend, any kindness I may have shown is amply repaid by your reading of Dickens. Do not let us mention the subject again." "Well, I'm very glad you have enjoyed it. I have, too. But I really must be thinking of getting back..." "Yes," said Mr Todd. "The black man was like that. He thought of it all the time. But he died here..." Twice during the next day Tony opened the subject, but his host was evasive. Finally, he said, "Forgive me, Mr Todd, but I really must press the point. When can I get a boat?" "There is no boat." "Well, the Indians can build one." "You must wait for the rains. There is not enough water in the river now." "How long will that be?" "A month... two months..." They had finished _Bleak House_ and were nearing the end of _Dombey and Son_ when the rain came. "Now it is time to make preparations to go." "Oh, that is impossible. The Indians will not make a boat during the rainy season--it is one of their superstitions." "You might have told me." "Did I not mention it? I forgot." Next morning Tony went out alone while his host was busy, and, looking as aimless as he could, strolled across the savannah to the group of Indian houses. There were four or five Pie-wies sitting in one of the doorways. They did not look up as he approached them. He addressed them in the few words of Macushi he had acquired during the journey but they made no sign whether they understood him or not. Then he drew a sketch of a canoe in the sand, he went through some vague motions of carpentry, pointed from them to him, then made motions of giving something to them and scratched out the outlines of a gun and a hat and a few other recognizable articles of trade. One of the women giggled but no one gave any sign of comprehension, and he went away unsatisfied. At their mid-day meal Mr Todd said, "Mr Last, the Indians tell me that you have been trying to speak with them. It is easier that you say anything you wish through me. You realize, do you not, that they would do nothing without my authority. They regard themselves, quite rightly in many cases, as my children." "Well, as a matter of fact, I was asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * They finished _Dombey and Son_. Nearly a year had passed since Tony had left England, and his gloomy foreboding of permanent exile became suddenly acute when, between the pages of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, he found a document written in pencil in irregular characters. Year 1919. I James Todd of Brazil do swear to Barnabas Washington of Georgetown that if he finish this book in fact Martin Chuzzlewit I will let him go away back as soon as finished. There followed a heavy pencil X and after it: _Mr Todd made this mark signed Barnabas Washington_. "Mr Todd," said Tony, "I must speak frankly. You saved my life, and when I get back to civilization I will reward you to the best of my ability. I will give you anything within reason. But at present you are keeping me here against my will. I demand to be released." "But, my friend, what is keeping you? You are under no restraint. Go when you like." "You know very well that I can't get away without your help." "In that case you must humour an old man. Read me another chapter." "Mr Todd, I swear by anything you like that when I get to Man?os I will find someone to take my place. I will pay a man to read to you all day." "But I have no need of another man. You read so well." "I have read for the last time." "I hope not," said Mr Todd politely. That evening at supper only one plate of dried meat and farine was brought in and Mr Todd ate alone. Tony lay without speaking, staring at the thatch. Next day at noon a single plate was put before Mr Todd but with it lay his gun, cocked, on his knee, as he ate. Tony resumed the reading of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ where it had been interrupted. Weeks passed hopelessly. They read _Nicholas Nickleby_ and _Little Dorrit_ and _Oliver Twist_. Then a stranger arrived in the savannah, a half-caste prospector, one of that lonely order of men who wander for a lifetime through the forests, tracing the little streams, sifting the gravel and, ounce by ounce, filling the little leather sack of gold dust, more often than not dying of exposure and starvation with five hundred dollars worth of gold hung round their necks. Mr Todd was vexed at his arrival, gave him farine and _tasso_ and sent him on his journey within an hour of his arrival, but in that hour Tony had time to scribble his name on a slip of paper and put it into the man's hand. From now on there was hope. The days followed their unvarying routine; coffee at sunrise, a morning of inaction while Mr Todd pottered about on the business of the farm, farine and _tasso_ at noon, Dickens in the afternoon, farine and _tasso_ and sometimes some fruit for supper, silence from sunset to dawn with the small wick glowing in the beef fat and the palm thatch overhead dimly discernible; but Tony lived in quiet confidence and expectation. Sometime, this year or the next, the prospector would arrive at a Brazilian village with news of his discovery. The disasters of the Messinger expedition would not have passed unnoticed. Tony could imagine the headlines that must have appeared in the popular press; even now, probably, there were search parties working over the country he had crossed; any day English voices must sound over the savannah and a dozen friendly adventurers come crashing through the bush. Even as he was reading, while his lips mechanically followed the printed pages, his mind wandered away from his eager, crazy host opposite, and he began to narrate to himself incidents of his homecoming--the gradual re-encounters with civilization (he shaved and bought new clothes at Man?os, telegraphed for money, received wires of congratulation; he enjoyed the leisurely river journey to Belem, the big liner to Europe; savoured good claret and fresh meat and spring vegetables; he was shy at meeting Brenda and uncertain how to address her... "_Darling_, you've been much longer than you said. I quite thought you were lost..."). And then Mr Todd interrupted. "May I trouble you to read that passage again? It is one I particularly enjoy." The weeks passed; there was no sign of rescue but Tony endured the day for hope of what might happen on the morrow; he even felt a slight stirring of cordiality towards his jailer and was therefore quite willing to join him when, one evening after a long conference with an Indian neighbour he proposed a celebration. "It is one of the local feast days," he explained, "and they have been making _pivari_. You may not like it but you should try some. We will go | not disturb yourself about that. You will have time to finish it, my friend." For the first time Tony noticed something slightly menacing in his host's manner. That evening at supper, a brief meal of farine and dried beef, eaten just before sundown, Tony renewed the subject. "You know, Mr Todd, the time has come when I must be thinking about getting back to civilization. I have already imposed myself on your hospitality far too long." Mr Todd bent over the plate, crunching mouthfuls of farine, but made no reply. "How soon do you think I shall be able to get a boat?... I said, how soon do you think I shall be able to get a boat? I appreciate all your kindness to me more than I can say, but..." "My friend, any kindness I may have shown is amply repaid by your reading of Dickens. Do not let us mention the subject again." "Well, I'm very glad you have enjoyed it. I have, too. But I really must be thinking of getting back..." "Yes," said Mr Todd. "The black man was like that. He thought of it all the time. But he died here..." Twice during the next day Tony opened the subject, but his host was evasive. Finally, he said, "Forgive me, Mr Todd, but I really must press the point. When can I get a boat?" "There is no boat." "Well, the Indians can build one." "You must wait for the rains. There is not enough water in the river now." "How long will that be?" "A month... two months..." They had finished _Bleak House_ and were nearing the end of _Dombey and Son_ when the rain came. "Now it is time to make preparations to go." "Oh, that is impossible. The Indians will not make a boat during the rainy season--it is one of their superstitions." "You might have told me." "Did I not mention it? I forgot." Next morning Tony went out alone while his host was busy, and, looking as aimless as he could, strolled across the savannah to the group of Indian houses. There were four or five Pie-wies sitting in one of the doorways. They did not look up as he approached them. He addressed them in the few words of Macushi he had acquired during the journey but they made no sign whether they understood him or not. Then he drew a sketch of a canoe in the sand, he went through some vague motions of carpentry, pointed from them to him, then made motions of giving something to them and scratched out the outlines of a gun and a hat and a few other recognizable articles of trade. One of the women giggled but no one gave any sign of comprehension, and he went away unsatisfied. At their mid-day meal Mr Todd said, "Mr Last, the Indians tell me that you have been trying to speak with them. It is easier that you say anything you wish through me. You realize, do you not, that they would do nothing without my authority. They regard themselves, quite rightly in many cases, as my children." "Well, as a matter of fact, I was asking them about a canoe."<|quote|>"So they gave me to understand... and now if you have finished your meal perhaps we might have another chapter. I am quite absorbed in the book."</|quote|>* * * * * They finished _Dombey and Son_. Nearly a year had passed since Tony had left England, and his gloomy foreboding of permanent exile became suddenly acute when, between the pages of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, he found a document written in pencil in irregular characters. Year 1919. I James Todd of Brazil do swear to Barnabas Washington of Georgetown that if he finish this book in fact Martin Chuzzlewit I will let him go away back as soon as finished. There followed a heavy pencil X and after it: _Mr Todd made this mark signed Barnabas Washington_. "Mr Todd," said Tony, "I must speak frankly. You saved my life, and when I get back to civilization I will reward you to the best of my ability. I will give you anything within reason. But at present you are keeping me here against my will. I demand to be released." "But, my friend, what is keeping you? You are under no restraint. Go when you like." "You know very well that I can't get away without your help." "In that case you must humour an old man. Read me another chapter." "Mr Todd, I swear by anything you like that when I get to Man?os I will find someone to take my place. I will pay a man to read to you all day." "But I have no need of another man. You read so well." "I have read for the last time." "I hope not," said Mr Todd politely. That evening at supper only one plate of dried meat and farine was brought in and Mr Todd ate alone. Tony lay without speaking, staring at the thatch. Next day at noon a single plate was put before Mr Todd but with it lay his gun, cocked, on his knee, as he ate. Tony resumed the reading of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ where it had been interrupted. Weeks passed hopelessly. They read _Nicholas Nickleby_ and _Little Dorrit_ and _Oliver Twist_. Then a stranger arrived in the savannah, a half-caste prospector, one of that lonely order of men who wander for a lifetime through the forests, tracing the little streams, sifting the gravel and, ounce by ounce, filling the little leather sack of gold dust, more often than not dying of exposure and starvation with five hundred dollars worth of gold hung round their necks. Mr Todd was vexed at his arrival, gave him farine and _tasso_ and sent him on his journey within an hour of his arrival, but in that hour Tony had time to scribble his name on a slip of paper and put it into the man's hand. From now on there was hope. The days followed their unvarying routine; coffee at sunrise, a morning of inaction while Mr Todd pottered about on the | A Handful Of Dust |
said Pooh. | No speaker | mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that | some lived underground, and---- "You mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it | Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees and some lived underground, and---- "You mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to waste it." Christopher Robin nodded. "Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to wait for you to get thin again." "How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. "About | able to use his front door again. And I should _hate_ that," he said. "So should I," said Rabbit. "Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use his front door again." "Good," said Rabbit. "If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you back." Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees and some lived underground, and---- "You mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to waste it." Christopher Robin nodded. "Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to wait for you to get thin again." "How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. "About a week, I should think." "But I can't stay here for a _week_!" "You can _stay_ here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out which is so difficult." "We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I hope it won't snow," he added. "And I say, old fellow, | too much. I thought at the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew if wasn't _me_," he said. "Well, well, I shall go and fetch Christopher Robin." Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest, and when he came back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, "Silly old Bear," in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again. "I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing slightly, "that Rabbit might never be able to use his front door again. And I should _hate_ that," he said. "So should I," said Rabbit. "Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use his front door again." "Good," said Rabbit. "If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you back." Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees and some lived underground, and---- "You mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to waste it." Christopher Robin nodded. "Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to wait for you to get thin again." "How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. "About a week, I should think." "But I can't stay here for a _week_!" "You can _stay_ here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out which is so difficult." "We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I hope it won't snow," he added. "And I say, old fellow, you're taking up a good deal of room in my house--_do_ you mind if I use your back legs as a towel-horse? Because, I mean, there they are--doing nothing--and it would be very convenient just to hang the towels on them." "A week!" said Pooh gloomily. "_What about meals?_" "I'm afraid no meals," said Christopher Robin, "because of getting thin quicker. But we _will_ read to you." Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: "Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such | wasn't." "I thought not," said Pooh, nodding to himself. "Well, good-bye. I must be going on." So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was out in the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... and then his shoulders ... and then---- "Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back." "Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on." "I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help _and_ bother!" Now by this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too, and finding the front door full, he went out by the back door, and came round to Pooh, and looked at him. "Hallo, are you stuck?" he asked. "N-no," said Pooh carelessly. "Just resting and thinking and humming to myself." "Here, give us a paw." Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and pulled.... "_Ow!_" cried Pooh. "You're hurting!" "The fact is," said Rabbit, "you're stuck." "It all comes," said Pooh crossly, "of not having front doors big enough." "It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too much. I thought at the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew if wasn't _me_," he said. "Well, well, I shall go and fetch Christopher Robin." Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest, and when he came back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, "Silly old Bear," in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again. "I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing slightly, "that Rabbit might never be able to use his front door again. And I should _hate_ that," he said. "So should I," said Rabbit. "Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use his front door again." "Good," said Rabbit. "If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you back." Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees and some lived underground, and---- "You mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to waste it." Christopher Robin nodded. "Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to wait for you to get thin again." "How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. "About a week, I should think." "But I can't stay here for a _week_!" "You can _stay_ here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out which is so difficult." "We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I hope it won't snow," he added. "And I say, old fellow, you're taking up a good deal of room in my house--_do_ you mind if I use your back legs as a towel-horse? Because, I mean, there they are--doing nothing--and it would be very convenient just to hang the towels on them." "A week!" said Pooh gloomily. "_What about meals?_" "I'm afraid no meals," said Christopher Robin, "because of getting thin quicker. But we _will_ read to you." Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: "Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?" So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end ... and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week Christopher Robin said, "_Now!_" So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit's friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together.... And for a long time Pooh only said "_Ow!_" ... And "_Oh!_" ... And then, all of a sudden, he said "_Pop!_" just as if a cork were coming out of a bottle. And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit's friends and relations went head-over-heels backwards ... and on the top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh--free! So, with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on with his walk through the forest, humming proudly to himself. But, Christopher Robin looked after him lovingly, and said to himself, "Silly old Bear!" CHAPTER III IN WHICH POOH AND PIGLET GO HUNTING AND NEARLY CATCH A WOOZLE The Piglet lived in a | hole, and thought for a little, and he thought to himself, "There must be somebody there, because somebody must have _said_ 'Nobody.'" So he put his head back in the hole, and said: "Hallo, Rabbit, isn't that you?" "No," said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this time. "But isn't that Rabbit's voice?" "I don't _think_ so," said Rabbit. "It isn't _meant_ to be." "Oh!" said Pooh. He took his head out of the hole, and had another think, and then he put it back, and said: "Well, could you very kindly tell me where Rabbit is?" "He has gone to see his friend Pooh Bear, who is a great friend of his." "But this _is_ Me!" said Bear, very much surprised. "What sort of Me?" "Pooh Bear." "Are you sure?" said Rabbit, still more surprised. "Quite, quite sure," said Pooh. "Oh, well, then, come in." So Pooh pushed and pushed and pushed his way through the hole, and at last he got in. "You were quite right," said Rabbit, looking at him all over. "It _is_ you. Glad to see you." "Who did you think it was?" "Well, I wasn't sure. You know how it is in the Forest. One can't have _anybody_ coming into one's house. One has to be _careful_. What about a mouthful of something?" Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, "But don't bother about the bread, please." And for a long time after that he said nothing ... until at last, humming to himself in a rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and said that he must be going on. "Must you?" said Rabbit politely. "Well," said Pooh, "I could stay a little longer if it--if you----" and he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder. "As a matter of fact," said Rabbit, "I was going out myself directly." "Oh, well, then, I'll be going on. Good-bye." "Well, good-bye, if you're sure you won't have any more." "_Is_ there any more?" asked Pooh quickly. Rabbit took the covers off the dishes, and said, "No, there wasn't." "I thought not," said Pooh, nodding to himself. "Well, good-bye. I must be going on." So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was out in the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... and then his shoulders ... and then---- "Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back." "Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on." "I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help _and_ bother!" Now by this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too, and finding the front door full, he went out by the back door, and came round to Pooh, and looked at him. "Hallo, are you stuck?" he asked. "N-no," said Pooh carelessly. "Just resting and thinking and humming to myself." "Here, give us a paw." Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and pulled.... "_Ow!_" cried Pooh. "You're hurting!" "The fact is," said Rabbit, "you're stuck." "It all comes," said Pooh crossly, "of not having front doors big enough." "It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too much. I thought at the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew if wasn't _me_," he said. "Well, well, I shall go and fetch Christopher Robin." Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest, and when he came back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, "Silly old Bear," in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again. "I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing slightly, "that Rabbit might never be able to use his front door again. And I should _hate_ that," he said. "So should I," said Rabbit. "Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use his front door again." "Good," said Rabbit. "If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you back." Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees and some lived underground, and---- "You mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to waste it." Christopher Robin nodded. "Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to wait for you to get thin again." "How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. "About a week, I should think." "But I can't stay here for a _week_!" "You can _stay_ here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out which is so difficult." "We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I hope it won't snow," he added. "And I say, old fellow, you're taking up a good deal of room in my house--_do_ you mind if I use your back legs as a towel-horse? Because, I mean, there they are--doing nothing--and it would be very convenient just to hang the towels on them." "A week!" said Pooh gloomily. "_What about meals?_" "I'm afraid no meals," said Christopher Robin, "because of getting thin quicker. But we _will_ read to you." Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: "Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?" So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end ... and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week Christopher Robin said, "_Now!_" So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit's friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together.... And for a long time Pooh only said "_Ow!_" ... And "_Oh!_" ... And then, all of a sudden, he said "_Pop!_" just as if a cork were coming out of a bottle. And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit's friends and relations went head-over-heels backwards ... and on the top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh--free! So, with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on with his walk through the forest, humming proudly to himself. But, Christopher Robin looked after him lovingly, and said to himself, "Silly old Bear!" CHAPTER III IN WHICH POOH AND PIGLET GO HUNTING AND NEARLY CATCH A WOOZLE The Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, and the beech-tree was in the middle of the forest, and the Piglet lived in the middle of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had: "TRESPASSERS W" on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name, and had been in the family for a long time, Christopher Robin said you _couldn't_ be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one--Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers. "I've got two names," said Christopher Robin carelessly. "Well, there you are, that proves it," said Piglet. One fine winter's day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called to him, he just went on walking. "Hallo!" said Piglet, "what are _you_ doing?" "Hunting," said Pooh. "Hunting what?" "Tracking something," said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously. "Tracking what?" said Piglet, coming closer. "That's just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?" "What do you think you'll answer?" "I shall have to wait until I catch up with it," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "Now, look there." He pointed to the ground in front of him. "What do you see there?" "Tracks," said Piglet. "Paw-marks." He gave a little squeak of excitement. "Oh, Pooh! Do you think it's a--a--a Woozle?" "It may be," said Pooh. "Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. You never can tell with paw-marks." With these few words he went on tracking, and Piglet, after watching him for a minute or two, ran after him. Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden stop, and was bending over the tracks in a puzzled sort of way. "What's the matter?" asked Piglet. "It's a very funny thing," said Bear, "but there seem to be _two_ animals now. This--whatever-it-was--has been joined by another--whatever-it-is--and the two of them are now proceeding in company. Would you mind coming with me, Piglet, in case they turn out to be Hostile Animals?" Piglet scratched his ear in a nice sort of way, and said that he had | coming into one's house. One has to be _careful_. What about a mouthful of something?" Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, "But don't bother about the bread, please." And for a long time after that he said nothing ... until at last, humming to himself in a rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and said that he must be going on. "Must you?" said Rabbit politely. "Well," said Pooh, "I could stay a little longer if it--if you----" and he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder. "As a matter of fact," said Rabbit, "I was going out myself directly." "Oh, well, then, I'll be going on. Good-bye." "Well, good-bye, if you're sure you won't have any more." "_Is_ there any more?" asked Pooh quickly. Rabbit took the covers off the dishes, and said, "No, there wasn't." "I thought not," said Pooh, nodding to himself. "Well, good-bye. I must be going on." So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was out in the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... and then his shoulders ... and then---- "Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back." "Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on." "I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help _and_ bother!" Now by this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too, and finding the front door full, he went out by the back door, and came round to Pooh, and looked at him. "Hallo, are you stuck?" he asked. "N-no," said Pooh carelessly. "Just resting and thinking and humming to myself." "Here, give us a paw." Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and pulled.... "_Ow!_" cried Pooh. "You're hurting!" "The fact is," said Rabbit, "you're stuck." "It all comes," said Pooh crossly, "of not having front doors big enough." "It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too much. I thought at the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew if wasn't _me_," he said. "Well, well, I shall go and fetch Christopher Robin." Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest, and when he came back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, "Silly old Bear," in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again. "I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing slightly, "that Rabbit might never be able to use his front door again. And I should _hate_ that," he said. "So should I," said Rabbit. "Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use his front door again." "Good," said Rabbit. "If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you back." Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed out that, when once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of course nobody was more glad to see Pooh than _he_ was, still there it was, some lived in trees and some lived underground, and---- "You mean I'd _never_ get out?"<|quote|>said Pooh.</|quote|>"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got _so_ far, it seems a pity to waste it." Christopher Robin nodded. "Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We shall have to wait for you to get thin again." "How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously. "About a week, I should think." "But I can't stay here for a _week_!" "You can _stay_ here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out which is so difficult." "We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I hope it won't snow," he added. "And I say, old fellow, you're taking up a good deal of room in my house--_do_ you mind if I use your back legs as a towel-horse? Because, I mean, there they are--doing nothing--and it would be very convenient just to hang the towels on them." "A week!" said Pooh gloomily. "_What about meals?_" "I'm afraid no meals," said Christopher Robin, "because of getting thin quicker. But we _will_ read to you." Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: "Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?" So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end ... and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week Christopher Robin said, "_Now!_" So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit's friends | Winnie The Pooh |
"Fewer servants, perhaps." | Joan | some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke | cut down our expenses in some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after | John s offer. I should have been making six hundred a year by this time." "I don t think that for a moment," Joan replied quickly, repenting of her annoyance. "The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn t cut down our expenses in some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after reflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictly economical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly: "It s out of the question." It was out of the question that she should put any more household work upon herself. | know and didn t mean to ask where, all the afternoon. Ralph was fond of his sister, and her irritation made him think how unfair it was that all these burdens should be laid on her shoulders. "The truth is," he observed gloomily, "that I ought to have accepted Uncle John s offer. I should have been making six hundred a year by this time." "I don t think that for a moment," Joan replied quickly, repenting of her annoyance. "The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn t cut down our expenses in some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after reflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictly economical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly: "It s out of the question." It was out of the question that she should put any more household work upon herself. No, the hardship must fall on him, for he was determined that his family should have as many chances of distinguishing themselves as other families had as the Hilberys had, for example. He believed secretly and rather defiantly, for it was a fact not capable of proof, that there was | his mother said. He called her "she," which was a proof of it. She sighed involuntarily, and the sigh annoyed Ralph, and he exclaimed with irritation: "It s pretty hard lines to stick a boy into an office at seventeen!" "Nobody _wants_ to stick him into an office," she said. She, too, was becoming annoyed. She had spent the whole of the afternoon discussing wearisome details of education and expense with her mother, and she had come to her brother for help, encouraged, rather irrationally, to expect help by the fact that he had been out somewhere, she didn t know and didn t mean to ask where, all the afternoon. Ralph was fond of his sister, and her irritation made him think how unfair it was that all these burdens should be laid on her shoulders. "The truth is," he observed gloomily, "that I ought to have accepted Uncle John s offer. I should have been making six hundred a year by this time." "I don t think that for a moment," Joan replied quickly, repenting of her annoyance. "The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn t cut down our expenses in some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after reflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictly economical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly: "It s out of the question." It was out of the question that she should put any more household work upon herself. No, the hardship must fall on him, for he was determined that his family should have as many chances of distinguishing themselves as other families had as the Hilberys had, for example. He believed secretly and rather defiantly, for it was a fact not capable of proof, that there was something very remarkable about his family. "If mother won t run risks" "You really can t expect her to sell out again." "She ought to look upon it as an investment; but if she won t, we must find some other way, that s all." A threat was contained in this sentence, and Joan knew, without asking, what the threat was. In the course of his professional life, which now extended over six or seven years, Ralph had saved, perhaps, three or four hundred pounds. Considering the sacrifices he had made in order to put by this sum it always | t believe me when I say it." Ralph, as if he could foresee the length of this familiar argument, drew up a chair for his sister and sat down himself. "I m not interrupting?" she inquired. Ralph shook his head, and for a time they sat silent. The lines curved themselves in semicircles above their eyes. "She doesn t understand that one s got to take risks," he observed, finally. "I believe mother would take risks if she knew that Charles was the sort of boy to profit by it." "He s got brains, hasn t he?" said Ralph. His tone had taken on that shade of pugnacity which suggested to his sister that some personal grievance drove him to take the line he did. She wondered what it might be, but at once recalled her mind, and assented. "In some ways he s fearfully backward, though, compared with what you were at his age. And he s difficult at home, too. He makes Molly slave for him." Ralph made a sound which belittled this particular argument. It was plain to Joan that she had struck one of her brother s perverse moods, and he was going to oppose whatever his mother said. He called her "she," which was a proof of it. She sighed involuntarily, and the sigh annoyed Ralph, and he exclaimed with irritation: "It s pretty hard lines to stick a boy into an office at seventeen!" "Nobody _wants_ to stick him into an office," she said. She, too, was becoming annoyed. She had spent the whole of the afternoon discussing wearisome details of education and expense with her mother, and she had come to her brother for help, encouraged, rather irrationally, to expect help by the fact that he had been out somewhere, she didn t know and didn t mean to ask where, all the afternoon. Ralph was fond of his sister, and her irritation made him think how unfair it was that all these burdens should be laid on her shoulders. "The truth is," he observed gloomily, "that I ought to have accepted Uncle John s offer. I should have been making six hundred a year by this time." "I don t think that for a moment," Joan replied quickly, repenting of her annoyance. "The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn t cut down our expenses in some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after reflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictly economical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly: "It s out of the question." It was out of the question that she should put any more household work upon herself. No, the hardship must fall on him, for he was determined that his family should have as many chances of distinguishing themselves as other families had as the Hilberys had, for example. He believed secretly and rather defiantly, for it was a fact not capable of proof, that there was something very remarkable about his family. "If mother won t run risks" "You really can t expect her to sell out again." "She ought to look upon it as an investment; but if she won t, we must find some other way, that s all." A threat was contained in this sentence, and Joan knew, without asking, what the threat was. In the course of his professional life, which now extended over six or seven years, Ralph had saved, perhaps, three or four hundred pounds. Considering the sacrifices he had made in order to put by this sum it always amazed Joan to find that he used it to gamble with, buying shares and selling them again, increasing it sometimes, sometimes diminishing it, and always running the risk of losing every penny of it in a day s disaster. But although she wondered, she could not help loving him the better for his odd combination of Spartan self-control and what appeared to her romantic and childish folly. Ralph interested her more than any one else in the world, and she often broke off in the middle of one of these economic discussions, in spite of their gravity, to consider some fresh aspect of his character. "I think you d be foolish to risk your money on poor old Charles," she observed. "Fond as I am of him, he doesn t seem to me exactly brilliant.... Besides, why should you be sacrificed?" "My dear Joan," Ralph exclaimed, stretching himself out with a gesture of impatience, "don t you see that we ve all got to be sacrificed? What s the use of denying it? What s the use of struggling against it? So it always has been, so it always will be. We ve got no money and we never shall | possessed him so completely that his muscles slackened, his book drooped from his hand, and he forgot that the hour of work was wasting minute by minute. He was roused by a creak upon the stair. With a guilty start he composed himself, frowned and looked intently at the fifty-sixth page of his volume. A step paused outside his door, and he knew that the person, whoever it might be, was considering the placard, and debating whether to honor its decree or not. Certainly, policy advised him to sit still in autocratic silence, for no custom can take root in a family unless every breach of it is punished severely for the first six months or so. But Ralph was conscious of a distinct wish to be interrupted, and his disappointment was perceptible when he heard the creaking sound rather farther down the stairs, as if his visitor had decided to withdraw. He rose, opened the door with unnecessary abruptness, and waited on the landing. The person stopped simultaneously half a flight downstairs. "Ralph?" said a voice, inquiringly. "Joan?" "I was coming up, but I saw your notice." "Well, come along in, then." He concealed his desire beneath a tone as grudging as he could make it. Joan came in, but she was careful to show, by standing upright with one hand upon the mantelpiece, that she was only there for a definite purpose, which discharged, she would go. She was older than Ralph by some three or four years. Her face was round but worn, and expressed that tolerant but anxious good humor which is the special attribute of elder sisters in large families. Her pleasant brown eyes resembled Ralph s, save in expression, for whereas he seemed to look straightly and keenly at one object, she appeared to be in the habit of considering everything from many different points of view. This made her appear his elder by more years than existed in fact between them. Her gaze rested for a moment or two upon the rook. She then said, without any preface: "It s about Charles and Uncle John s offer.... Mother s been talking to me. She says she can t afford to pay for him after this term. She says she ll have to ask for an overdraft as it is." "That s simply not true," said Ralph. "No. I thought not. But she won t believe me when I say it." Ralph, as if he could foresee the length of this familiar argument, drew up a chair for his sister and sat down himself. "I m not interrupting?" she inquired. Ralph shook his head, and for a time they sat silent. The lines curved themselves in semicircles above their eyes. "She doesn t understand that one s got to take risks," he observed, finally. "I believe mother would take risks if she knew that Charles was the sort of boy to profit by it." "He s got brains, hasn t he?" said Ralph. His tone had taken on that shade of pugnacity which suggested to his sister that some personal grievance drove him to take the line he did. She wondered what it might be, but at once recalled her mind, and assented. "In some ways he s fearfully backward, though, compared with what you were at his age. And he s difficult at home, too. He makes Molly slave for him." Ralph made a sound which belittled this particular argument. It was plain to Joan that she had struck one of her brother s perverse moods, and he was going to oppose whatever his mother said. He called her "she," which was a proof of it. She sighed involuntarily, and the sigh annoyed Ralph, and he exclaimed with irritation: "It s pretty hard lines to stick a boy into an office at seventeen!" "Nobody _wants_ to stick him into an office," she said. She, too, was becoming annoyed. She had spent the whole of the afternoon discussing wearisome details of education and expense with her mother, and she had come to her brother for help, encouraged, rather irrationally, to expect help by the fact that he had been out somewhere, she didn t know and didn t mean to ask where, all the afternoon. Ralph was fond of his sister, and her irritation made him think how unfair it was that all these burdens should be laid on her shoulders. "The truth is," he observed gloomily, "that I ought to have accepted Uncle John s offer. I should have been making six hundred a year by this time." "I don t think that for a moment," Joan replied quickly, repenting of her annoyance. "The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn t cut down our expenses in some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after reflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictly economical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly: "It s out of the question." It was out of the question that she should put any more household work upon herself. No, the hardship must fall on him, for he was determined that his family should have as many chances of distinguishing themselves as other families had as the Hilberys had, for example. He believed secretly and rather defiantly, for it was a fact not capable of proof, that there was something very remarkable about his family. "If mother won t run risks" "You really can t expect her to sell out again." "She ought to look upon it as an investment; but if she won t, we must find some other way, that s all." A threat was contained in this sentence, and Joan knew, without asking, what the threat was. In the course of his professional life, which now extended over six or seven years, Ralph had saved, perhaps, three or four hundred pounds. Considering the sacrifices he had made in order to put by this sum it always amazed Joan to find that he used it to gamble with, buying shares and selling them again, increasing it sometimes, sometimes diminishing it, and always running the risk of losing every penny of it in a day s disaster. But although she wondered, she could not help loving him the better for his odd combination of Spartan self-control and what appeared to her romantic and childish folly. Ralph interested her more than any one else in the world, and she often broke off in the middle of one of these economic discussions, in spite of their gravity, to consider some fresh aspect of his character. "I think you d be foolish to risk your money on poor old Charles," she observed. "Fond as I am of him, he doesn t seem to me exactly brilliant.... Besides, why should you be sacrificed?" "My dear Joan," Ralph exclaimed, stretching himself out with a gesture of impatience, "don t you see that we ve all got to be sacrificed? What s the use of denying it? What s the use of struggling against it? So it always has been, so it always will be. We ve got no money and we never shall have any money. We shall just turn round in the mill every day of our lives until we drop and die, worn out, as most people do, when one comes to think of it." Joan looked at him, opened her lips as if to speak, and closed them again. Then she said, very tentatively: "Aren t you happy, Ralph?" "No. Are you? Perhaps I m as happy as most people, though. God knows whether I m happy or not. What is happiness?" He glanced with half a smile, in spite of his gloomy irritation, at his sister. She looked, as usual, as if she were weighing one thing with another, and balancing them together before she made up her mind. "Happiness," she remarked at length enigmatically, rather as if she were sampling the word, and then she paused. She paused for a considerable space, as if she were considering happiness in all its bearings. "Hilda was here to-day," she suddenly resumed, as if they had never mentioned happiness. "She brought Bobbie he s a fine boy now." Ralph observed, with an amusement that had a tinge of irony in it, that she was now going to sidle away quickly from this dangerous approach to intimacy on to topics of general and family interest. Nevertheless, he reflected, she was the only one of his family with whom he found it possible to discuss happiness, although he might very well have discussed happiness with Miss Hilbery at their first meeting. He looked critically at Joan, and wished that she did not look so provincial or suburban in her high green dress with the faded trimming, so patient, and almost resigned. He began to wish to tell her about the Hilberys in order to abuse them, for in the miniature battle which so often rages between two quickly following impressions of life, the life of the Hilberys was getting the better of the life of the Denhams in his mind, and he wanted to assure himself that there was some quality in which Joan infinitely surpassed Miss Hilbery. He should have felt that his own sister was more original, and had greater vitality than Miss Hilbery had; but his main impression of Katharine now was of a person of great vitality and composure; and at the moment he could not perceive what poor dear Joan had gained from the fact that she was | and for a time they sat silent. The lines curved themselves in semicircles above their eyes. "She doesn t understand that one s got to take risks," he observed, finally. "I believe mother would take risks if she knew that Charles was the sort of boy to profit by it." "He s got brains, hasn t he?" said Ralph. His tone had taken on that shade of pugnacity which suggested to his sister that some personal grievance drove him to take the line he did. She wondered what it might be, but at once recalled her mind, and assented. "In some ways he s fearfully backward, though, compared with what you were at his age. And he s difficult at home, too. He makes Molly slave for him." Ralph made a sound which belittled this particular argument. It was plain to Joan that she had struck one of her brother s perverse moods, and he was going to oppose whatever his mother said. He called her "she," which was a proof of it. She sighed involuntarily, and the sigh annoyed Ralph, and he exclaimed with irritation: "It s pretty hard lines to stick a boy into an office at seventeen!" "Nobody _wants_ to stick him into an office," she said. She, too, was becoming annoyed. She had spent the whole of the afternoon discussing wearisome details of education and expense with her mother, and she had come to her brother for help, encouraged, rather irrationally, to expect help by the fact that he had been out somewhere, she didn t know and didn t mean to ask where, all the afternoon. Ralph was fond of his sister, and her irritation made him think how unfair it was that all these burdens should be laid on her shoulders. "The truth is," he observed gloomily, "that I ought to have accepted Uncle John s offer. I should have been making six hundred a year by this time." "I don t think that for a moment," Joan replied quickly, repenting of her annoyance. "The question, to my mind, is, whether we couldn t cut down our expenses in some way." "A smaller house?"<|quote|>"Fewer servants, perhaps."</|quote|>Neither brother nor sister spoke with much conviction, and after reflecting for a moment what these proposed reforms in a strictly economical household meant, Ralph announced very decidedly: "It s out of the question." It was out of the question that she should put any more household work upon herself. No, the hardship must fall on him, for he was determined that his family should have as many chances of distinguishing themselves as other families had as the Hilberys had, for example. He believed secretly and rather defiantly, for it was a fact not capable of proof, that there was something very remarkable about his family. "If mother won t run risks" "You really can t expect her to sell out again." "She ought to look upon it as an investment; but if she won t, we must find some other way, that s all." A threat was contained in this sentence, and Joan knew, without asking, what the threat was. In the course of his professional life, which now extended over six or seven years, Ralph had saved, perhaps, three or four hundred pounds. Considering the sacrifices he had made in order to put by this sum it always amazed Joan to find that he used it to gamble with, buying shares and selling them again, increasing it sometimes, sometimes diminishing it, and always running the risk of losing every penny of it in a day s disaster. But although she wondered, she could not help loving him the better for his odd combination of Spartan self-control and what appeared to her romantic and childish folly. Ralph interested her more than any one else in the world, and she often broke off in the middle of one of these economic discussions, in spite of their gravity, to consider some fresh aspect of his character. "I think you d be foolish to risk your money on poor old Charles," she observed. "Fond as I am of him, he doesn t seem to me exactly brilliant.... Besides, why should you be sacrificed?" "My dear Joan," Ralph exclaimed, stretching himself out with a gesture of impatience, "don t you see that we ve all got to be sacrificed? What s the use of denying it? What s the use of | Night And Day |
"I'd rather finish my tea," | The Hatter | we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an | the guinea-pigs!" thought Alice. "Now we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, | may stand down," continued the King. "I can't go no lower," said the Hatter: "I'm on the floor, as it is." "Then you may _sit_ down," the King replied. Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. "Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!" thought Alice. "Now we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. "You may go," said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on. "--and just take his head off outside," the Queen added to one | seen that done," thought Alice. "I've so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials," "There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," "and I never understood what it meant till now." "If that's all you know about it, you may stand down," continued the King. "I can't go no lower," said the Hatter: "I'm on the floor, as it is." "Then you may _sit_ down," the King replied. Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. "Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!" thought Alice. "Now we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. "You may go," said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on. "--and just take his head off outside," the Queen added to one of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door. "Call the next witness!" said the King. The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into | the King, "or I'll have you executed." The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. "I'm a poor man, your Majesty," he began. "You're a _very_ poor _speaker_," said the King. Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) "I'm glad I've seen that done," thought Alice. "I've so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials," "There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," "and I never understood what it meant till now." "If that's all you know about it, you may stand down," continued the King. "I can't go no lower," said the Hatter: "I'm on the floor, as it is." "Then you may _sit_ down," the King replied. Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. "Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!" thought Alice. "Now we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. "You may go," said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on. "--and just take his head off outside," the Queen added to one of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door. "Call the next witness!" said the King. The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. "Give your evidence," said the King. "Shan't," said the cook. The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, "Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness." "Well, if I must, I must," the King said, with a melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, "What are tarts made of?" "Pepper, mostly," said the cook. "Treacle," said a sleepy voice behind her. "Collar | your evidence," the King repeated angrily, "or I'll have you executed, whether you're nervous or not." "I'm a poor man, your Majesty," the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, "--and I hadn't begun my tea--not above a week or so--and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin--and the twinkling of the tea--" "The twinkling of the _what?_" said the King. "It _began_ with the tea," the Hatter replied. "Of course twinkling begins with a T!" said the King sharply. "Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!" "I'm a poor man," the Hatter went on, "and most things twinkled after that--only the March Hare said--" "I didn't!" the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry. "You did!" said the Hatter. "I deny it!" said the March Hare. "He denies it," said the King: "leave out that part." "Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said--" the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep. "After that," continued the Hatter, "I cut some more bread-and-butter--" "But what did the Dormouse say?" one of the jury asked. "That I can't remember," said the Hatter. "You _must_ remember," remarked the King, "or I'll have you executed." The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. "I'm a poor man, your Majesty," he began. "You're a _very_ poor _speaker_," said the King. Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) "I'm glad I've seen that done," thought Alice. "I've so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials," "There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," "and I never understood what it meant till now." "If that's all you know about it, you may stand down," continued the King. "I can't go no lower," said the Hatter: "I'm on the floor, as it is." "Then you may _sit_ down," the King replied. Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. "Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!" thought Alice. "Now we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. "You may go," said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on. "--and just take his head off outside," the Queen added to one of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door. "Call the next witness!" said the King. The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. "Give your evidence," said the King. "Shan't," said the cook. The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, "Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness." "Well, if I must, I must," the King said, with a melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, "What are tarts made of?" "Pepper, mostly," said the cook. "Treacle," said a sleepy voice behind her. "Collar that Dormouse," the Queen shrieked out. "Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!" For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had disappeared. "Never mind!" said the King, with an air of great relief. "Call the next witness." And he added in an undertone to the Queen, "Really, my dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my forehead ache!" Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like, "--for they haven't got much evidence _yet_," she said to herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the name "Alice!" CHAPTER XII. Alice's Evidence "Here!" cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, | begin?" The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. "Fourteenth of March, I _think_ it was," he said. "Fifteenth," said the March Hare. "Sixteenth," added the Dormouse. "Write that down," the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence. "Take off your hat," the King said to the Hatter. "It isn't mine," said the Hatter. "_Stolen!_" the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who instantly made a memorandum of the fact. "I keep them to sell," the Hatter added as an explanation; "I've none of my own. I'm a hatter." Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted. "Give your evidence," said the King; "and don't be nervous, or I'll have you executed on the spot." This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter. Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for her. "I wish you wouldn't squeeze so." said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. "I can hardly breathe." "I can't help it," said Alice very meekly: "I'm growing." "You've no right to grow _here_," said the Dormouse. "Don't talk nonsense," said Alice more boldly: "you know you're growing too." "Yes, but _I_ grow at a reasonable pace," said the Dormouse: "not in that ridiculous fashion." And he got up very sulkily and crossed over to the other side of the court. All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, "Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!" on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off. "Give your evidence," the King repeated angrily, "or I'll have you executed, whether you're nervous or not." "I'm a poor man, your Majesty," the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, "--and I hadn't begun my tea--not above a week or so--and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin--and the twinkling of the tea--" "The twinkling of the _what?_" said the King. "It _began_ with the tea," the Hatter replied. "Of course twinkling begins with a T!" said the King sharply. "Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!" "I'm a poor man," the Hatter went on, "and most things twinkled after that--only the March Hare said--" "I didn't!" the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry. "You did!" said the Hatter. "I deny it!" said the March Hare. "He denies it," said the King: "leave out that part." "Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said--" the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep. "After that," continued the Hatter, "I cut some more bread-and-butter--" "But what did the Dormouse say?" one of the jury asked. "That I can't remember," said the Hatter. "You _must_ remember," remarked the King, "or I'll have you executed." The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. "I'm a poor man, your Majesty," he began. "You're a _very_ poor _speaker_," said the King. Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) "I'm glad I've seen that done," thought Alice. "I've so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials," "There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," "and I never understood what it meant till now." "If that's all you know about it, you may stand down," continued the King. "I can't go no lower," said the Hatter: "I'm on the floor, as it is." "Then you may _sit_ down," the King replied. Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. "Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!" thought Alice. "Now we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. "You may go," said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on. "--and just take his head off outside," the Queen added to one of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door. "Call the next witness!" said the King. The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. "Give your evidence," said the King. "Shan't," said the cook. The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, "Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness." "Well, if I must, I must," the King said, with a melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, "What are tarts made of?" "Pepper, mostly," said the cook. "Treacle," said a sleepy voice behind her. "Collar that Dormouse," the Queen shrieked out. "Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!" For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had disappeared. "Never mind!" said the King, with an air of great relief. "Call the next witness." And he added in an undertone to the Queen, "Really, my dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my forehead ache!" Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like, "--for they haven't got much evidence _yet_," she said to herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the name "Alice!" CHAPTER XII. Alice's Evidence "Here!" cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before. "Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!" she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once and put back into the jury-box, or they would die. "The trial cannot proceed," said the King in a very grave voice, "until all the jurymen are back in their proper places--_all_," he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so. Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable to move. She soon got it out again, and put it right; "not that it signifies much," she said to herself; "I should think it would be _quite_ as much use in the trial one way up as the other." As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open, gazing up into the roof of the court. "What do you know about this business?" the King said to Alice. "Nothing," said Alice. "Nothing _whatever?_" persisted the King. "Nothing whatever," said Alice. "That's very important," the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted: "_Un_important, your Majesty means, of course," he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he spoke. "_Un_important, of course, I meant," the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, "important--unimportant--unimportant--important--" as if he were trying which word sounded best. Some of the jury wrote it down "important," and some "unimportant." Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; "but it doesn't matter a bit," she thought to herself. At this moment the | Dormouse said--" the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep. "After that," continued the Hatter, "I cut some more bread-and-butter--" "But what did the Dormouse say?" one of the jury asked. "That I can't remember," said the Hatter. "You _must_ remember," remarked the King, "or I'll have you executed." The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter, and went down on one knee. "I'm a poor man, your Majesty," he began. "You're a _very_ poor _speaker_," said the King. Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) "I'm glad I've seen that done," thought Alice. "I've so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials," "There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," "and I never understood what it meant till now." "If that's all you know about it, you may stand down," continued the King. "I can't go no lower," said the Hatter: "I'm on the floor, as it is." "Then you may _sit_ down," the King replied. Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed. "Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!" thought Alice. "Now we shall get on better."<|quote|>"I'd rather finish my tea,"</|quote|>said the Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers. "You may go," said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on. "--and just take his head off outside," the Queen added to one of the officers: but the Hatter was out of sight before the officer could get to the door. "Call the next witness!" said the King. The next witness was the Duchess's cook. She carried the pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began sneezing all at once. "Give your evidence," said the King. "Shan't," said the cook. The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a low voice, "Your Majesty must cross-examine _this_ witness." "Well, if I must, I must," the King said, with a melancholy air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, "What are tarts made of?" "Pepper, mostly," said the cook. "Treacle," said a sleepy voice behind her. "Collar that Dormouse," the Queen shrieked out. "Behead that Dormouse! Turn that Dormouse out of court! Suppress him! Pinch him! Off with his whiskers!" For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down again, the cook had disappeared. "Never mind!" said the King, with an air of great relief. "Call the next witness." And he added in an undertone to the Queen, "Really, my dear, _you_ must cross-examine the next witness. It quite makes my forehead ache!" Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list, feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like, "--for they haven't got much evidence _yet_," she said to herself. Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top of his shrill little voice, the name "Alice!" CHAPTER XII. Alice's Evidence "Here!" cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset the week before. "Oh, I _beg_ your pardon!" she exclaimed in a tone of great dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could, for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and she had a vague sort of idea that they must be | Alices Adventures In Wonderland |
said she, | No speaker | "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as | she was in quest of. "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as to say that I am | house--and was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in quest of. "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as to say that I am gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted, and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it | resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in quest of. "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as to say that I am gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted, and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am gone?" "Certainly, if | remain with him, that Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and variety which her spirits seemed to need. Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse's entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals, shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused. Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in quest of. "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as to say that I am gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted, and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am gone?" "Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury alone?" "Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty minutes." "But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my father's servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be round in five minutes." "Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to guard others!" She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, "That can be no reason for your | be cured of wishing that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to coming, with more than common certainty. "His aunt was so much better, that he had not a doubt of getting over to them."--Mrs. Churchill's state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable dependence--and Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say, that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was prevented coming.--Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under consideration; she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion. The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr. Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him, stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and variety which her spirits seemed to need. Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse's entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals, shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused. Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in quest of. "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as to say that I am gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted, and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am gone?" "Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury alone?" "Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty minutes." "But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my father's servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be round in five minutes." "Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to guard others!" She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, "That can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already." "I am," "--she answered--" "I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary." Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all; and entering into her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was grateful--and her parting words, "Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of being sometimes alone!" "--seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her, even towards some of those who loved her best. "Such a home, indeed! such an aunt!" said Emma, as she turned back into the hall again. "I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of their just horrors, the more I shall like you." | which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and the view which closed it extremely pretty.--The considerable slope, at nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood;--and at the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and handsome curve around it. It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive. In this walk Emma and Mr. Weston found all the others assembled; and towards this view she immediately perceived Mr. Knightley and Harriet distinct from the rest, quietly leading the way. Mr. Knightley and Harriet!--It was an odd tete-a-tete; but she was glad to see it.--There had been a time when he would have scorned her as a companion, and turned from her with little ceremony. Now they seemed in pleasant conversation. There had been a time also when Emma would have been sorry to see Harriet in a spot so favourable for the Abbey Mill Farm; but now she feared it not. It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.--She joined them at the wall, and found them more engaged in talking than in looking around. He was giving Harriet information as to modes of agriculture, etc. and Emma received a smile which seemed to say, "These are my own concerns. I have a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of introducing Robert Martin."--She did not suspect him. It was too old a story.--Robert Martin had probably ceased to think of Harriet.--They took a few turns together along the walk.--The shade was most refreshing, and Emma found it the pleasantest part of the day. The next remove was to the house; they must all go in and eat;--and they were all seated and busy, and still Frank Churchill did not come. Mrs. Weston looked, and looked in vain. His father would not own himself uneasy, and laughed at her fears; but she could not be cured of wishing that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to coming, with more than common certainty. "His aunt was so much better, that he had not a doubt of getting over to them."--Mrs. Churchill's state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable dependence--and Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say, that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was prevented coming.--Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under consideration; she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion. The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr. Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him, stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and variety which her spirits seemed to need. Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse's entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals, shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused. Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in quest of. "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as to say that I am gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted, and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am gone?" "Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury alone?" "Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty minutes." "But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my father's servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be round in five minutes." "Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to guard others!" She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, "That can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already." "I am," "--she answered--" "I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary." Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all; and entering into her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was grateful--and her parting words, "Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of being sometimes alone!" "--seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her, even towards some of those who loved her best. "Such a home, indeed! such an aunt!" said Emma, as she turned back into the hall again. "I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of their just horrors, the more I shall like you." Jane had not been gone a quarter of an hour, and they had only accomplished some views of St. Mark's Place, Venice, when Frank Churchill entered the room. Emma had not been thinking of him, she had forgotten to think of him--but she was very glad to see him. Mrs. Weston would be at ease. The black mare was blameless; _they_ were right who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had lasted some hours--and he had quite given up every thought of coming, till very late;--and had he known how hot a ride he should have, and how late, with all his hurry, he must be, he believed he should not have come at all. The heat was excessive; he had never suffered any thing like it--almost wished he had staid at home--nothing killed him like heat--he could bear any degree of cold, etc., but heat was intolerable--and he sat down, at the greatest possible distance from the slight remains of Mr. Woodhouse's fire, looking very deplorable. "You will soon be cooler, if you sit still," said Emma. "As soon as I am cooler I shall go back again. I could very ill be spared--but such a point had been made of my coming! You will all be going soon I suppose; the whole party breaking up. I met _one_ as I came--Madness in such weather!--absolute madness!" Emma listened, and looked, and soon perceived that Frank Churchill's state might be best defined by the expressive phrase of being out of humour. Some people were always cross when they were hot. Such might be his constitution; and as she knew that eating and drinking were often the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking some refreshment; he would find abundance of every thing in the dining-room--and she humanely pointed out the door. "No--he should not eat. He was not hungry; it would only make him hotter." In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off. Emma returned all her attention to her father, saying in secret-- "I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a man who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet's sweet easy temper will not mind it." He was gone long | what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr. Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him, stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and variety which her spirits seemed to need. Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse's entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals, shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused. Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in quest of. "Will you be so kind,"<|quote|>said she,</|quote|>"when I am missed, as to say that I am gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted, and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am gone?" "Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury alone?" "Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty minutes." "But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my father's servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be round in five minutes." "Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to guard others!" She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, "That can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already." "I am," "--she answered--" "I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have my own | Emma |
when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that | No speaker | saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” | laughed a joyous little laugh, saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” “Men are queer creatures,” I | ones, merry ones, old-headed thoughts, and the sweet, sweet thoughts of youth and love. It seemed to me that men were not so invincible and invulnerable as I had imagined them—it appeared they had feeling and affections after all. I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” “Men are queer creatures,” I returned. “They have the most wonderful brains in some ways, but in little things they are as stupid as owls. It is no trouble to them to master geology, mineralogy, anatomy, and other things, the very name of which gives | night, Mr Goodchum! Good-bye, Miss Craddock! Ta-ta, Miss Melvyn! So long, Jay-Jay! Good-bye, Mrs Bell! Goodbye, Miss Goodjay! Good night, Miss Melvyn! Good night, Mr Goodjay! Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good-bye, Miss Melvyn! Good night all!” I sat long by my writing-table that night—thinking long, long thoughts, foolish thoughts, sad ones, merry ones, old-headed thoughts, and the sweet, sweet thoughts of youth and love. It seemed to me that men were not so invincible and invulnerable as I had imagined them—it appeared they had feeling and affections after all. I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” “Men are queer creatures,” I returned. “They have the most wonderful brains in some ways, but in little things they are as stupid as owls. It is no trouble to them to master geology, mineralogy, anatomy, and other things, the very name of which gives me a headache. They can see through politics, mature mighty water reservoir schemes, and manage five stations at once, but they couldn’t sew on a button or fix one’s hair to save their life.” I cannot imagine how the news had escaped me, for the story with which Harold Beecham | and how young, I feel it is brutal to worry you at all, and you don’t detest me altogether for getting in such an infernal rage?” “No. That is the very thing I liked. Good night!” “Good night,” he replied, taking both my hands in his. “You are the best little woman in the world, and I hope we will spend all your other birthdays together.” “It’s to be hoped you’ve said something to make Harry a trifle sweeter than he was this afternoon,” said Goodchum. Then it was: “Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good night, Harry! Good night, Archie! Good night, Mr Goodchum! Good-bye, Miss Craddock! Ta-ta, Miss Melvyn! So long, Jay-Jay! Good-bye, Mrs Bell! Goodbye, Miss Goodjay! Good night, Miss Melvyn! Good night, Mr Goodjay! Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good-bye, Miss Melvyn! Good night all!” I sat long by my writing-table that night—thinking long, long thoughts, foolish thoughts, sad ones, merry ones, old-headed thoughts, and the sweet, sweet thoughts of youth and love. It seemed to me that men were not so invincible and invulnerable as I had imagined them—it appeared they had feeling and affections after all. I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” “Men are queer creatures,” I returned. “They have the most wonderful brains in some ways, but in little things they are as stupid as owls. It is no trouble to them to master geology, mineralogy, anatomy, and other things, the very name of which gives me a headache. They can see through politics, mature mighty water reservoir schemes, and manage five stations at once, but they couldn’t sew on a button or fix one’s hair to save their life.” I cannot imagine how the news had escaped me, for the story with which Harold Beecham surprised and startled me on that long hot afternoon had been common talk for some time. He had come to Caddagat purposely to explain his affairs to me, and stated as his reason for not having done so earlier that he had waited until the last moment thinking he might pull himself up. Business to me is a great mystery, into which I haven’t the slightest desire to penetrate. I have no brains in that direction,—so will not attempt to correctly reproduce all that Harold Beecham told me on that afternoon while leaning against a tree at my feet and | gentlemen were putting on their coats. Harold procured his, and thrust his arms into it, while we were attacked on all sides by a flood of banter. My birthday tea was a great success, and after it was done we enjoyed ourselves in the drawing-room. Uncle Jay-Jay handed me a large box, saying it contained a present. Everyone looked on with interest while I hurriedly opened it, when they were much amused to see—nothing but a doll and materials to make it clothes! I was much disappointed, but uncle said it would be more in my line to play with that than to worry about tramps and politics. I took care to behave properly during the evening, and when the good-byes were in full swing had an opportunity of a last word with Harold, he stooping to hear me whisper: “Now that I know you care, I will not annoy you any more by flirting.” “Don’t talk like that. I was only mad for the moment. Enjoy yourself as much as you like. I don’t want you to be like a nun. I’m not quite so selfish as that. When I look at you and see how tiny you are, and how young, I feel it is brutal to worry you at all, and you don’t detest me altogether for getting in such an infernal rage?” “No. That is the very thing I liked. Good night!” “Good night,” he replied, taking both my hands in his. “You are the best little woman in the world, and I hope we will spend all your other birthdays together.” “It’s to be hoped you’ve said something to make Harry a trifle sweeter than he was this afternoon,” said Goodchum. Then it was: “Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good night, Harry! Good night, Archie! Good night, Mr Goodchum! Good-bye, Miss Craddock! Ta-ta, Miss Melvyn! So long, Jay-Jay! Good-bye, Mrs Bell! Goodbye, Miss Goodjay! Good night, Miss Melvyn! Good night, Mr Goodjay! Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good-bye, Miss Melvyn! Good night all!” I sat long by my writing-table that night—thinking long, long thoughts, foolish thoughts, sad ones, merry ones, old-headed thoughts, and the sweet, sweet thoughts of youth and love. It seemed to me that men were not so invincible and invulnerable as I had imagined them—it appeared they had feeling and affections after all. I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” “Men are queer creatures,” I returned. “They have the most wonderful brains in some ways, but in little things they are as stupid as owls. It is no trouble to them to master geology, mineralogy, anatomy, and other things, the very name of which gives me a headache. They can see through politics, mature mighty water reservoir schemes, and manage five stations at once, but they couldn’t sew on a button or fix one’s hair to save their life.” I cannot imagine how the news had escaped me, for the story with which Harold Beecham surprised and startled me on that long hot afternoon had been common talk for some time. He had come to Caddagat purposely to explain his affairs to me, and stated as his reason for not having done so earlier that he had waited until the last moment thinking he might pull himself up. Business to me is a great mystery, into which I haven’t the slightest desire to penetrate. I have no brains in that direction,—so will not attempt to correctly reproduce all that Harold Beecham told me on that afternoon while leaning against a tree at my feet and looking down at me as I reclined in the hammock. There was great mention of bogus bonds, bad investments, liabilities and assets and personal estates, and of a thing called an official assignee—whatever that is—voluntary sequestration, and a jargon of such terms that were enough to mither a Barcoo lawyer. The gist of the matter, as I gathered it, was that Harold Beecham, looked upon as such a “lucky beggar” , and envied as a pet of fortune, had been visited by an unprecedented run of crushing misfortunes. He had not been as rich and sound in position as the public had imagined him to be. The failure of a certain bank two or three years previously had given him a great shaking. The tick plague had ruined him as regarded his Queensland property, and the drought had made matters nearly as bad for him in New South Wales. The burning of his wool last year, and the failure of the agents in whose hands he had placed it, this had pushed him farther into the mire, and now the recent “going bung” of a building society—his sole remaining prop—had run him entirely ashore. He had sequestrated his estate, and | have felt fit to kill you and myself many a time the last fortnight, you have tormented me so; but I have managed to keep myself within bounds till now. Will you wear my ring again?” “Oh no; and you must not say I am flirting if I cannot manage to love you enough to marry you, but I will try my best.” “Don’t you love me, Syb? I have thought of nothing else but you night and day since I saw you first. Can it be possible that you don’t care a straw for me?” and a pained expression came upon his face. “Oh, Harold, I’m afraid I very nearly love you, but don’t hurry me too much! You can think me sort of secretly engaged to you if you like, but I won’t take your ring. Keep it till we see how we get on.” I looked for it, and finding it a few steps away, gave it to him. “Can you really trust me again after seeing me get in such a vile beast of a rage? I often do that, you know,” he said. “Believe me, Hal, I liked it so much I wish you would get in a rage again. I can’t bear people who never let themselves go, or rather, who have nothing in them to carry them away—they cramp and bore me.” “But I have a frightful temper. Satan only knows what I will do in it yet. Would you not be frightened of me?” “No fear,” I laughed; “I would defy you.” “A tomtit might as well defy me,” he said with amusement. “Well, big as you are, a tomtit having such superior facilities for getting about could easily defy you,” I replied. “Yes, unless it was caged,” he said. “But supposing you never got it caged,” I returned. “Syb, what do you mean?” “What could I mean?” “I don’t know. There are always about four or five meanings in what you say.” “Oh, thanks, Mr Beecham! You must be very astute. I am always thankful when I am able to dish one meaning out of my idle gabble.” The glorious summer day had fallen asleep on the bosom of the horizon, and twilight had merged into dusk, as, picking up the basket, Harold and I returned cherry- and strawberry-less to the tennis court. The players had just ceased action, and the gentlemen were putting on their coats. Harold procured his, and thrust his arms into it, while we were attacked on all sides by a flood of banter. My birthday tea was a great success, and after it was done we enjoyed ourselves in the drawing-room. Uncle Jay-Jay handed me a large box, saying it contained a present. Everyone looked on with interest while I hurriedly opened it, when they were much amused to see—nothing but a doll and materials to make it clothes! I was much disappointed, but uncle said it would be more in my line to play with that than to worry about tramps and politics. I took care to behave properly during the evening, and when the good-byes were in full swing had an opportunity of a last word with Harold, he stooping to hear me whisper: “Now that I know you care, I will not annoy you any more by flirting.” “Don’t talk like that. I was only mad for the moment. Enjoy yourself as much as you like. I don’t want you to be like a nun. I’m not quite so selfish as that. When I look at you and see how tiny you are, and how young, I feel it is brutal to worry you at all, and you don’t detest me altogether for getting in such an infernal rage?” “No. That is the very thing I liked. Good night!” “Good night,” he replied, taking both my hands in his. “You are the best little woman in the world, and I hope we will spend all your other birthdays together.” “It’s to be hoped you’ve said something to make Harry a trifle sweeter than he was this afternoon,” said Goodchum. Then it was: “Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good night, Harry! Good night, Archie! Good night, Mr Goodchum! Good-bye, Miss Craddock! Ta-ta, Miss Melvyn! So long, Jay-Jay! Good-bye, Mrs Bell! Goodbye, Miss Goodjay! Good night, Miss Melvyn! Good night, Mr Goodjay! Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good-bye, Miss Melvyn! Good night all!” I sat long by my writing-table that night—thinking long, long thoughts, foolish thoughts, sad ones, merry ones, old-headed thoughts, and the sweet, sweet thoughts of youth and love. It seemed to me that men were not so invincible and invulnerable as I had imagined them—it appeared they had feeling and affections after all. I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” “Men are queer creatures,” I returned. “They have the most wonderful brains in some ways, but in little things they are as stupid as owls. It is no trouble to them to master geology, mineralogy, anatomy, and other things, the very name of which gives me a headache. They can see through politics, mature mighty water reservoir schemes, and manage five stations at once, but they couldn’t sew on a button or fix one’s hair to save their life.” I cannot imagine how the news had escaped me, for the story with which Harold Beecham surprised and startled me on that long hot afternoon had been common talk for some time. He had come to Caddagat purposely to explain his affairs to me, and stated as his reason for not having done so earlier that he had waited until the last moment thinking he might pull himself up. Business to me is a great mystery, into which I haven’t the slightest desire to penetrate. I have no brains in that direction,—so will not attempt to correctly reproduce all that Harold Beecham told me on that afternoon while leaning against a tree at my feet and looking down at me as I reclined in the hammock. There was great mention of bogus bonds, bad investments, liabilities and assets and personal estates, and of a thing called an official assignee—whatever that is—voluntary sequestration, and a jargon of such terms that were enough to mither a Barcoo lawyer. The gist of the matter, as I gathered it, was that Harold Beecham, looked upon as such a “lucky beggar” , and envied as a pet of fortune, had been visited by an unprecedented run of crushing misfortunes. He had not been as rich and sound in position as the public had imagined him to be. The failure of a certain bank two or three years previously had given him a great shaking. The tick plague had ruined him as regarded his Queensland property, and the drought had made matters nearly as bad for him in New South Wales. The burning of his wool last year, and the failure of the agents in whose hands he had placed it, this had pushed him farther into the mire, and now the recent “going bung” of a building society—his sole remaining prop—had run him entirely ashore. He had sequestrated his estate, and as soon as practicable was going through the courts as an insolvent. The personal estate allowed him from the debris of his wealth he intended to settle on his aunts, and he hoped it might be sufficient to support them. Himself, he had the same prospects as the boundary-riders on Five-Bob Downs. I had nothing to say. Not that Harold was a much-to-be-pitied man when one contrasted his lot with that of millions of his fellows as deserving as he; but, on the other hand, considering he had been reared in wealth and as the master of it since his birth, to be suddenly rendered equal with a labourer was pretty hard lines. “Oh, Harold, I am so sorry for you!” I managed to stammer at last. “Don’t worry about me. There’s many a poor devil, crippled and ill, though rolling in millions, who would give all his wealth to stand in my boots today,” he said, drawing his splendid figure to its full height, while a look of stern pride settled on the strong features. Harold Beecham was not a whimpering cur. He would never tell anyone his feelings on the subject; but such a sudden reverse of fortune, tearing from him even his home, must have been a great blow to him. “Syb, I have been expecting this for some years; now that it is done with, it is a sort of grim relief. The worst of all is that I’ve had to give up all hope of winning you. That is the worst of all. If you didn’t care for me when I was thought to be in a position to give you all that girls like, you could never look at me now that I’m a pauper. I only hope you will get some fellow who will make you as happy as I would have tried to had you let me.” I sat and wondered at the marvellous self-containment of the man before me. With this crash impending, just imagine the worry he must have gone through! But never had the least suspicion that he was troubled found betrayal on his brow. “Good-bye, Syb,” he said; “though I’m a nobody now, if I could ever be of use to you, don’t be afraid to ask me.” I remember him wringing the limp hand I mechanically stretched out to him and then slowly revaulting the fence. The | be frightened of me?” “No fear,” I laughed; “I would defy you.” “A tomtit might as well defy me,” he said with amusement. “Well, big as you are, a tomtit having such superior facilities for getting about could easily defy you,” I replied. “Yes, unless it was caged,” he said. “But supposing you never got it caged,” I returned. “Syb, what do you mean?” “What could I mean?” “I don’t know. There are always about four or five meanings in what you say.” “Oh, thanks, Mr Beecham! You must be very astute. I am always thankful when I am able to dish one meaning out of my idle gabble.” The glorious summer day had fallen asleep on the bosom of the horizon, and twilight had merged into dusk, as, picking up the basket, Harold and I returned cherry- and strawberry-less to the tennis court. The players had just ceased action, and the gentlemen were putting on their coats. Harold procured his, and thrust his arms into it, while we were attacked on all sides by a flood of banter. My birthday tea was a great success, and after it was done we enjoyed ourselves in the drawing-room. Uncle Jay-Jay handed me a large box, saying it contained a present. Everyone looked on with interest while I hurriedly opened it, when they were much amused to see—nothing but a doll and materials to make it clothes! I was much disappointed, but uncle said it would be more in my line to play with that than to worry about tramps and politics. I took care to behave properly during the evening, and when the good-byes were in full swing had an opportunity of a last word with Harold, he stooping to hear me whisper: “Now that I know you care, I will not annoy you any more by flirting.” “Don’t talk like that. I was only mad for the moment. Enjoy yourself as much as you like. I don’t want you to be like a nun. I’m not quite so selfish as that. When I look at you and see how tiny you are, and how young, I feel it is brutal to worry you at all, and you don’t detest me altogether for getting in such an infernal rage?” “No. That is the very thing I liked. Good night!” “Good night,” he replied, taking both my hands in his. “You are the best little woman in the world, and I hope we will spend all your other birthdays together.” “It’s to be hoped you’ve said something to make Harry a trifle sweeter than he was this afternoon,” said Goodchum. Then it was: “Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good night, Harry! Good night, Archie! Good night, Mr Goodchum! Good-bye, Miss Craddock! Ta-ta, Miss Melvyn! So long, Jay-Jay! Good-bye, Mrs Bell! Goodbye, Miss Goodjay! Good night, Miss Melvyn! Good night, Mr Goodjay! Good night, Mrs Bossier! Good-bye, Miss Melvyn! Good night all!” I sat long by my writing-table that night—thinking long, long thoughts, foolish thoughts, sad ones, merry ones, old-headed thoughts, and the sweet, sweet thoughts of youth and love. It seemed to me that men were not so invincible and invulnerable as I had imagined them—it appeared they had feeling and affections after all. I laughed a joyous little laugh, saying, “Hal, we are quits,”<|quote|>when, on disrobing for the night, I discovered on my soft white shoulders and arms—so susceptible to bruises—many marks, and black. It had been a very happy day for me. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Thou Knowest Not What a Day May Bring Forth The next time I saw Harold Beecham was on Sunday the 13th of December. There was a hammock swinging under a couple of trees in an enclosure, half shrubbery, partly orchard and vegetable garden, skirting the road. In this I was gently swinging to and fro, and very much enjoying an interesting book and some delicious gooseberries, and seeing Harold approaching pretended to be asleep, to see if he would kiss me. But no, he was not that style of man. After tethering his horse to the fence and vaulting himself over it, he shook me and informed me I was as sound asleep as a log, and had required no end of waking. My hair tumbled down. I accused him of disarranging it, and ordered him to repair the damage. He couldn’t make out what was the matter with it, only that</|quote|>“It looks a bit dotty.” “Men are queer creatures,” I returned. “They have the most wonderful brains in some ways, but in little things they are as stupid as owls. It is no trouble to them to master geology, mineralogy, anatomy, and other things, the very name of which gives me a headache. They can see through politics, mature mighty water reservoir schemes, and manage five stations at once, but they couldn’t sew on a button or fix one’s hair to save their life.” I cannot imagine how the news had escaped me, for the story with which Harold Beecham surprised and startled me on that long hot afternoon had been common talk for some time. He had come to Caddagat purposely to explain his affairs to me, and stated as his reason for not having done so earlier that he had waited until the last moment thinking he might pull himself up. Business to me is a great mystery, into which I haven’t the slightest desire to penetrate. I have no brains in that direction,—so will not attempt to correctly reproduce all that Harold Beecham told me on that afternoon while leaning against a tree at my feet and looking down at me as I reclined | My Brilliant Career |
"No," | Winnie | You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to | his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to go to the seaside. I | "You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy." Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group. "Oh God!" said Tony. "I | gold-rimmed spectacles. When she spoke she revealed that two of her front teeth were missing. "I hope you don't imagine she's coming with us." "Yes, that the idea," said Milly. "She won't be any trouble--she's got her puzzle." Tony bent down to speak to the little girl. "Listen," he said. "You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy." Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group. "Oh God!" said Tony. "I suppose she's got to come." The detectives followed at a distance down the platform. Tony settled his companions in a Pullman car. "Look," said Milly, "we're travelling first-class. Isn't that fun? We can have tea." "Can I have an ice?" "I don't expect they've got an ice. But you can | said Tony. It was ten minutes before Milly came. She emerged from the gloom with a porter in front carrying her suitcase and a child dragging back on her arm behind her. Milly's wardrobe consisted mainly of evening dresses, for during the day she usually spent her time sitting before a gas fire in her dressing-gown. She made an insignificant and rather respectable appearance. "Sorry if I'm late," she said. "Winnie here couldn't find her shoes. I brought her along too. I knew you wouldn't mind really. She travels on a half ticket." Winnie was a plain child with large gold-rimmed spectacles. When she spoke she revealed that two of her front teeth were missing. "I hope you don't imagine she's coming with us." "Yes, that the idea," said Milly. "She won't be any trouble--she's got her puzzle." Tony bent down to speak to the little girl. "Listen," he said. "You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy." Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group. "Oh God!" said Tony. "I suppose she's got to come." The detectives followed at a distance down the platform. Tony settled his companions in a Pullman car. "Look," said Milly, "we're travelling first-class. Isn't that fun? We can have tea." "Can I have an ice?" "I don't expect they've got an ice. But you can have some nice tea." "But I want an ice." "You shall have an ice when you get to Brighton. Now be a good girl and play with your puzzle or mother won't take you to the seaside again." "The Awful Child of popular fiction," said Jock as he left Tony. Winnie sustained the part throughout the journey to Brighton. She was not inventive but she knew the classic routine thoroughly, even to such commonplace but alarming devices as breathing heavily, grunting and complaining of nausea. * * * * * Rooms at the hotel had been engaged for Tony by | had come over her; reliving scene after scene in the last eight years of his life. All this kept him awake. [II] There was a general rendezvous at the first-class booking office. The detectives were there earliest, ten minutes before their time. They had been pointed out to Tony at the solicitor's office so that he should not lose them. They were cheerful middle-aged men in soft hats and heavy overcoats. They were looking forward to their week-end, for most of their daily work consisted in standing about at street corners watching front doors, and a job of this kind was eagerly competed for in the office. In more modest divorces the solicitors were content to rely on the evidence of the hotel servants. The detectives were a luxury and proposed to treat themselves as such. There was a slight fog in London that day. The station lamps were alight prematurely. Tony came next, with Jock at his side, loyally there to see him off. They bought the tickets and waited. The detectives, sticklers for professional etiquette, made an attempt at self-effacement, studying the posters on the walls and peering from behind a pillar. "This is going to be hell," said Tony. It was ten minutes before Milly came. She emerged from the gloom with a porter in front carrying her suitcase and a child dragging back on her arm behind her. Milly's wardrobe consisted mainly of evening dresses, for during the day she usually spent her time sitting before a gas fire in her dressing-gown. She made an insignificant and rather respectable appearance. "Sorry if I'm late," she said. "Winnie here couldn't find her shoes. I brought her along too. I knew you wouldn't mind really. She travels on a half ticket." Winnie was a plain child with large gold-rimmed spectacles. When she spoke she revealed that two of her front teeth were missing. "I hope you don't imagine she's coming with us." "Yes, that the idea," said Milly. "She won't be any trouble--she's got her puzzle." Tony bent down to speak to the little girl. "Listen," he said. "You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy." Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group. "Oh God!" said Tony. "I suppose she's got to come." The detectives followed at a distance down the platform. Tony settled his companions in a Pullman car. "Look," said Milly, "we're travelling first-class. Isn't that fun? We can have tea." "Can I have an ice?" "I don't expect they've got an ice. But you can have some nice tea." "But I want an ice." "You shall have an ice when you get to Brighton. Now be a good girl and play with your puzzle or mother won't take you to the seaside again." "The Awful Child of popular fiction," said Jock as he left Tony. Winnie sustained the part throughout the journey to Brighton. She was not inventive but she knew the classic routine thoroughly, even to such commonplace but alarming devices as breathing heavily, grunting and complaining of nausea. * * * * * Rooms at the hotel had been engaged for Tony by the solicitors. It was therefore a surprise to the reception clerk when Winnie arrived. "We have reserved in your name double and single communicating rooms, bathroom and sitting-room," he said. "We did not understand you were bringing your daughter. Will you require a further room?" "Oh, Winnie can come in with me," said Milly. The two detectives who were standing nearby at the counter exchanged glances of disapproval. Tony wrote _Mr and Mrs Last_ in the Visitors' Book. "And daughter," said the clerk with his finger on the place. Tony hesitated. "She is my niece," he said, and inscribed her name on another line, as _Miss Smith_. The detective, registering below, remarked to his colleague, "He got out of that all right. Quite smart. But I don't like the look of this case. Most irregular. Sets a nasty, respectable note bringing a kid into it. We've got the firm to consider. It doesn't do them any good to get mixed up with the King's Proctor." "How about a quick one?" said his colleague indifferently. Upstairs, Winnie said, "Where's the sea?" "Just there across the street." "I want to go and see it." "But it's dark now, pet. You shall see | into a little ball of a handkerchief. "It's for a divorce." "Oh, I see. Well, why doesn't he take Milly? She doesn't catch cold easy. Besides, she knows how to behave at an hotel. Lots of the girls here are all right to have a lark with in town, but you have to have a _lady_ for a divorce." "D'you often get asked to do that?" "Now and then. It's a nice rest--but it means so much _talking_ and the gentlemen will always go on so about their wives." While they were dancing Tony came straight to business. "I suppose you wouldn't care to come away for the week-end?" he asked. "Shouldn't mind," said Milly. "Where?" "I thought of Brighton." "Oh... Is it for a divorce?" "Yes." "You wouldn't mind if I brought my little girl with us? She wouldn't be any trouble." "Yes." "You mean you wouldn't mind?" "I mean I should mind." "Oh... You wouldn't think I had a little girl of eight, would you?" "No." "She's called Winnie. I was only sixteen when I had her. I was the youngest of the family and our stepfather wouldn't leave any of us girls alone. That's why I have to work. She lives with a lady at Finchley. Twenty-eight bob a week it costs me, not counting her clothes. She does like the seaside." "No," said Tony. "I'm sorry but it would be quite impossible. We'll get a lovely present for you to take back to her." "All right... One gentleman gave her a fairy-cycle for Christmas. She fell off and cut her knee... When do we start?" "Would you like to go by train or car?" "Oh, train. Winnie's sick if she goes in a car." "Winnie's not coming." "No, but let's go by train anyway." So it was decided that they should meet at Victoria on Saturday afternoon. Jock gave Babs ten shillings and he and Tony went home, Tony had not slept much lately. He could not prevent himself, when alone, from rehearsing over and over in his mind all that had happened since Beaver's visit to Hetton; searching for clues he had missed at the time; wondering where something he had said or done might have changed the course of events; going back further to his earliest acquaintance with Brenda to find indications that should have made him more ready to understand the change that had come over her; reliving scene after scene in the last eight years of his life. All this kept him awake. [II] There was a general rendezvous at the first-class booking office. The detectives were there earliest, ten minutes before their time. They had been pointed out to Tony at the solicitor's office so that he should not lose them. They were cheerful middle-aged men in soft hats and heavy overcoats. They were looking forward to their week-end, for most of their daily work consisted in standing about at street corners watching front doors, and a job of this kind was eagerly competed for in the office. In more modest divorces the solicitors were content to rely on the evidence of the hotel servants. The detectives were a luxury and proposed to treat themselves as such. There was a slight fog in London that day. The station lamps were alight prematurely. Tony came next, with Jock at his side, loyally there to see him off. They bought the tickets and waited. The detectives, sticklers for professional etiquette, made an attempt at self-effacement, studying the posters on the walls and peering from behind a pillar. "This is going to be hell," said Tony. It was ten minutes before Milly came. She emerged from the gloom with a porter in front carrying her suitcase and a child dragging back on her arm behind her. Milly's wardrobe consisted mainly of evening dresses, for during the day she usually spent her time sitting before a gas fire in her dressing-gown. She made an insignificant and rather respectable appearance. "Sorry if I'm late," she said. "Winnie here couldn't find her shoes. I brought her along too. I knew you wouldn't mind really. She travels on a half ticket." Winnie was a plain child with large gold-rimmed spectacles. When she spoke she revealed that two of her front teeth were missing. "I hope you don't imagine she's coming with us." "Yes, that the idea," said Milly. "She won't be any trouble--she's got her puzzle." Tony bent down to speak to the little girl. "Listen," he said. "You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy." Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group. "Oh God!" said Tony. "I suppose she's got to come." The detectives followed at a distance down the platform. Tony settled his companions in a Pullman car. "Look," said Milly, "we're travelling first-class. Isn't that fun? We can have tea." "Can I have an ice?" "I don't expect they've got an ice. But you can have some nice tea." "But I want an ice." "You shall have an ice when you get to Brighton. Now be a good girl and play with your puzzle or mother won't take you to the seaside again." "The Awful Child of popular fiction," said Jock as he left Tony. Winnie sustained the part throughout the journey to Brighton. She was not inventive but she knew the classic routine thoroughly, even to such commonplace but alarming devices as breathing heavily, grunting and complaining of nausea. * * * * * Rooms at the hotel had been engaged for Tony by the solicitors. It was therefore a surprise to the reception clerk when Winnie arrived. "We have reserved in your name double and single communicating rooms, bathroom and sitting-room," he said. "We did not understand you were bringing your daughter. Will you require a further room?" "Oh, Winnie can come in with me," said Milly. The two detectives who were standing nearby at the counter exchanged glances of disapproval. Tony wrote _Mr and Mrs Last_ in the Visitors' Book. "And daughter," said the clerk with his finger on the place. Tony hesitated. "She is my niece," he said, and inscribed her name on another line, as _Miss Smith_. The detective, registering below, remarked to his colleague, "He got out of that all right. Quite smart. But I don't like the look of this case. Most irregular. Sets a nasty, respectable note bringing a kid into it. We've got the firm to consider. It doesn't do them any good to get mixed up with the King's Proctor." "How about a quick one?" said his colleague indifferently. Upstairs, Winnie said, "Where's the sea?" "Just there across the street." "I want to go and see it." "But it's dark now, pet. You shall see it to-morrow." "I want to see it to-night." "You take her to see it now," said Tony. "Sure you won't be lonely?" "Quite sure." "We won't be long." "That's all right. You let her see it properly." Tony went down to the bar where he was pleased to find the two detectives. He felt the need of male company. "Good evening," he said. They looked at him askance. Everything in this case seemed to be happening as though with deliberate design to shock their professional feelings. "Good evening," said the senior detective. "Nasty, raw evening." "Have a drink." Since Tony was paying their expenses in any case, the offer seemed superfluous, but the junior detective brightened instinctively and said, "Don't mind if I do." "Come and sit down. I feel rather lonely." They took their drinks to a table out of hearing of the barman. "Mr Last, sir, this is all _wrong_," said the senior detective. "You haven't no business to recognize us at all. I don't know what they'd say at the office." "Best respects," said the junior detective. "This is Mr James, my colleague," said the senior detective. "My name is Blenkinsop. James is new to this kind of work." "So am I," said Tony. "A pity we've such a nasty week-end for the job," said Blenkinsop, "very damp and blowy. Gets me in the joints." "Tell me," said Tony. "Is it usual to bring children on an expedition of this kind?" "It is _not_." "I thought it couldn't be." "Since you ask me, Mr Last, I regard it as most irregular and injudicious. It looks wrong, and cases of this kind depend very much on making the right impression. Of course as far as James and me are concerned, the matter is O.K. There won't be a word about it in our evidence. But you can't trust the servants. You might very likely happen to strike one who was new to the courts, who'd blurt it out, and then where would we be. I don't like it, Mr Last, and that's the truth." "You can't feel more strongly about it than I do." "Fond of kids myself," said James, who was new to this kind of work. "How about one with us?" "Tell me," said Tony, when they had been at their table some little time. "You must have observed numerous couples in your time, qualifying for | a luxury and proposed to treat themselves as such. There was a slight fog in London that day. The station lamps were alight prematurely. Tony came next, with Jock at his side, loyally there to see him off. They bought the tickets and waited. The detectives, sticklers for professional etiquette, made an attempt at self-effacement, studying the posters on the walls and peering from behind a pillar. "This is going to be hell," said Tony. It was ten minutes before Milly came. She emerged from the gloom with a porter in front carrying her suitcase and a child dragging back on her arm behind her. Milly's wardrobe consisted mainly of evening dresses, for during the day she usually spent her time sitting before a gas fire in her dressing-gown. She made an insignificant and rather respectable appearance. "Sorry if I'm late," she said. "Winnie here couldn't find her shoes. I brought her along too. I knew you wouldn't mind really. She travels on a half ticket." Winnie was a plain child with large gold-rimmed spectacles. When she spoke she revealed that two of her front teeth were missing. "I hope you don't imagine she's coming with us." "Yes, that the idea," said Milly. "She won't be any trouble--she's got her puzzle." Tony bent down to speak to the little girl. "Listen," he said. "You don't want to come to a nasty big hotel. You go with this kind gentleman here. He'll take you to a shop and let you choose the biggest doll you can find and then he'll drive you back in his motor to your home. You'll like that, won't you?"<|quote|>"No,"</|quote|>said Winnie. "I want to go to the seaside. I won't go with that man. I don't want a doll. I want to go to the seaside with my mummy." Several people besides the detectives were beginning to take notice of the oddly assorted group. "Oh God!" said Tony. "I suppose she's got to come." The detectives followed at a distance down the platform. Tony settled his companions in a Pullman car. "Look," said Milly, "we're travelling first-class. Isn't that fun? We can have tea." "Can I have an ice?" "I don't expect they've got an ice. But you can have some nice tea." "But I want an ice." "You shall have an ice when you get to Brighton. Now be a good girl and play with your puzzle or mother won't take you to the seaside again." "The Awful Child of popular fiction," said Jock as he left Tony. Winnie sustained the part throughout the journey to Brighton. She was not inventive but she knew the classic routine thoroughly, even to such commonplace but alarming devices as breathing heavily, grunting and complaining of nausea. * * * * * Rooms at the hotel had been engaged for Tony by the solicitors. It was therefore a surprise to the reception clerk when Winnie arrived. "We have | A Handful Of Dust |
"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party." | Anne Elliot | if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows | It would have been strange if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will | you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party." "Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one's own. Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded! They are both so very large, and take up so | house in the parish, as a sort of take-leave. I was told that they wished it. But all these things took up a great deal of time." "Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday." "Did you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party." "Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one's own. Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded! They are both so very large, and take up so much room; and Mr Musgrove always sits forward. So, there was I, crowded into the back seat with Henrietta and Louisa; and I think it very likely that my illness to-day may be owing to it." A little further perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on Anne's side produced nearly | a moment; but I can tell you some. I have been making a duplicate of the catalogue of my father's books and pictures. I have been several times in the garden with Mackenzie, trying to understand, and make him understand, which of Elizabeth's plants are for Lady Russell. I have had all my own little concerns to arrange, books and music to divide, and all my trunks to repack, from not having understood in time what was intended as to the waggons: and one thing I have had to do, Mary, of a more trying nature: going to almost every house in the parish, as a sort of take-leave. I was told that they wished it. But all these things took up a great deal of time." "Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday." "Did you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party." "Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one's own. Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded! They are both so very large, and take up so much room; and Mr Musgrove always sits forward. So, there was I, crowded into the back seat with Henrietta and Louisa; and I think it very likely that my illness to-day may be owing to it." A little further perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on Anne's side produced nearly a cure on Mary's. She could soon sit upright on the sofa, and began to hope she might be able to leave it by dinner-time. Then, forgetting to think of it, she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nosegay; then, she ate her cold meat; and then she was well enough to propose a little walk. "Where shall we go?" said she, when they were ready. "I suppose you will not like to call at the Great House before they have been to see you?" "I have not the smallest objection on that account," replied Anne. | the window, but without getting off his horse; and though I told him how ill I was, not one of them have been near me. It did not happen to suit the Miss Musgroves, I suppose, and they never put themselves out of their way." "You will see them yet, perhaps, before the morning is gone. It is early." "I never want them, I assure you. They talk and laugh a great deal too much for me. Oh! Anne, I am so very unwell! It was quite unkind of you not to come on Thursday." "My dear Mary, recollect what a comfortable account you sent me of yourself! You wrote in the cheerfullest manner, and said you were perfectly well, and in no hurry for me; and that being the case, you must be aware that my wish would be to remain with Lady Russell to the last: and besides what I felt on her account, I have really been so busy, have had so much to do, that I could not very conveniently have left Kellynch sooner." "Dear me! what can you possibly have to do?" "A great many things, I assure you. More than I can recollect in a moment; but I can tell you some. I have been making a duplicate of the catalogue of my father's books and pictures. I have been several times in the garden with Mackenzie, trying to understand, and make him understand, which of Elizabeth's plants are for Lady Russell. I have had all my own little concerns to arrange, books and music to divide, and all my trunks to repack, from not having understood in time what was intended as to the waggons: and one thing I have had to do, Mary, of a more trying nature: going to almost every house in the parish, as a sort of take-leave. I was told that they wished it. But all these things took up a great deal of time." "Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday." "Did you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party." "Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one's own. Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded! They are both so very large, and take up so much room; and Mr Musgrove always sits forward. So, there was I, crowded into the back seat with Henrietta and Louisa; and I think it very likely that my illness to-day may be owing to it." A little further perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on Anne's side produced nearly a cure on Mary's. She could soon sit upright on the sofa, and began to hope she might be able to leave it by dinner-time. Then, forgetting to think of it, she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nosegay; then, she ate her cold meat; and then she was well enough to propose a little walk. "Where shall we go?" said she, when they were ready. "I suppose you will not like to call at the Great House before they have been to see you?" "I have not the smallest objection on that account," replied Anne. "I should never think of standing on such ceremony with people I know so well as Mrs and the Miss Musgroves." "Oh! but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible. They ought to feel what is due to you as my sister. However, we may as well go and sit with them a little while, and when we have that over, we can enjoy our walk." Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent; but she had ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that, though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither family could now do without it. To the Great House accordingly they went, to sit the full half hour in the old-fashioned square parlour, with a small carpet and shining floor, to which the present daughters of the house were gradually giving the proper air of confusion by a grand piano-forte and a harp, flower-stands and little tables placed in every direction. Oh! could the originals of the portraits against the wainscot, could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue satin have seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an overthrow | had no resources for solitude; and inheriting a considerable share of the Elliot self-importance, was very prone to add to every other distress that of fancying herself neglected and ill-used. In person, she was inferior to both sisters, and had, even in her bloom, only reached the dignity of being "a fine girl." She was now lying on the faded sofa of the pretty little drawing-room, the once elegant furniture of which had been gradually growing shabby, under the influence of four summers and two children; and, on Anne's appearing, greeted her with-- "So, you are come at last! I began to think I should never see you. I am so ill I can hardly speak. I have not seen a creature the whole morning!" "I am sorry to find you unwell," replied Anne. "You sent me such a good account of yourself on Thursday!" "Yes, I made the best of it; I always do: but I was very far from well at the time; and I do not think I ever was so ill in my life as I have been all this morning: very unfit to be left alone, I am sure. Suppose I were to be seized of a sudden in some dreadful way, and not able to ring the bell! So, Lady Russell would not get out. I do not think she has been in this house three times this summer." Anne said what was proper, and enquired after her husband. "Oh! Charles is out shooting. I have not seen him since seven o'clock. He would go, though I told him how ill I was. He said he should not stay out long; but he has never come back, and now it is almost one. I assure you, I have not seen a soul this whole long morning." "You have had your little boys with you?" "Yes, as long as I could bear their noise; but they are so unmanageable that they do me more harm than good. Little Charles does not mind a word I say, and Walter is growing quite as bad." "Well, you will soon be better now," replied Anne, cheerfully. "You know I always cure you when I come. How are your neighbours at the Great House?" "I can give you no account of them. I have not seen one of them to-day, except Mr Musgrove, who just stopped and spoke through the window, but without getting off his horse; and though I told him how ill I was, not one of them have been near me. It did not happen to suit the Miss Musgroves, I suppose, and they never put themselves out of their way." "You will see them yet, perhaps, before the morning is gone. It is early." "I never want them, I assure you. They talk and laugh a great deal too much for me. Oh! Anne, I am so very unwell! It was quite unkind of you not to come on Thursday." "My dear Mary, recollect what a comfortable account you sent me of yourself! You wrote in the cheerfullest manner, and said you were perfectly well, and in no hurry for me; and that being the case, you must be aware that my wish would be to remain with Lady Russell to the last: and besides what I felt on her account, I have really been so busy, have had so much to do, that I could not very conveniently have left Kellynch sooner." "Dear me! what can you possibly have to do?" "A great many things, I assure you. More than I can recollect in a moment; but I can tell you some. I have been making a duplicate of the catalogue of my father's books and pictures. I have been several times in the garden with Mackenzie, trying to understand, and make him understand, which of Elizabeth's plants are for Lady Russell. I have had all my own little concerns to arrange, books and music to divide, and all my trunks to repack, from not having understood in time what was intended as to the waggons: and one thing I have had to do, Mary, of a more trying nature: going to almost every house in the parish, as a sort of take-leave. I was told that they wished it. But all these things took up a great deal of time." "Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday." "Did you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party." "Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one's own. Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded! They are both so very large, and take up so much room; and Mr Musgrove always sits forward. So, there was I, crowded into the back seat with Henrietta and Louisa; and I think it very likely that my illness to-day may be owing to it." A little further perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on Anne's side produced nearly a cure on Mary's. She could soon sit upright on the sofa, and began to hope she might be able to leave it by dinner-time. Then, forgetting to think of it, she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nosegay; then, she ate her cold meat; and then she was well enough to propose a little walk. "Where shall we go?" said she, when they were ready. "I suppose you will not like to call at the Great House before they have been to see you?" "I have not the smallest objection on that account," replied Anne. "I should never think of standing on such ceremony with people I know so well as Mrs and the Miss Musgroves." "Oh! but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible. They ought to feel what is due to you as my sister. However, we may as well go and sit with them a little while, and when we have that over, we can enjoy our walk." Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent; but she had ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that, though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither family could now do without it. To the Great House accordingly they went, to sit the full half hour in the old-fashioned square parlour, with a small carpet and shining floor, to which the present daughters of the house were gradually giving the proper air of confusion by a grand piano-forte and a harp, flower-stands and little tables placed in every direction. Oh! could the originals of the portraits against the wainscot, could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue satin have seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an overthrow of all order and neatness! The portraits themselves seemed to be staring in astonishment. The Musgroves, like their houses, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement. The father and mother were in the old English style, and the young people in the new. Mr and Mrs Musgrove were a very good sort of people; friendly and hospitable, not much educated, and not at all elegant. Their children had more modern minds and manners. There was a numerous family; but the only two grown up, excepting Charles, were Henrietta and Louisa, young ladies of nineteen and twenty, who had brought from school at Exeter all the usual stock of accomplishments, and were now like thousands of other young ladies, living to be fashionable, happy, and merry. Their dress had every advantage, their faces were rather pretty, their spirits extremely good, their manner unembarrassed and pleasant; they were of consequence at home, and favourites abroad. Anne always contemplated them as some of the happiest creatures of her acquaintance; but still, saved as we all are, by some comfortable feeling of superiority from wishing for the possibility of exchange, she would not have given up her own more elegant and cultivated mind for all their enjoyments; and envied them nothing but that seemingly perfect good understanding and agreement together, that good-humoured mutual affection, of which she had known so little herself with either of her sisters. They were received with great cordiality. Nothing seemed amiss on the side of the Great House family, which was generally, as Anne very well knew, the least to blame. The half hour was chatted away pleasantly enough; and she was not at all surprised, at the end of it, to have their walking party joined by both the Miss Musgroves, at Mary's particular invitation. Chapter 6 Anne had not wanted this visit to Uppercross, to learn that a removal from one set of people to another, though at a distance of only three miles, will often include a total change of conversation, opinion, and idea. She had never been staying there before, without being struck by it, or without wishing that other Elliots could have her advantage in seeing how unknown, or unconsidered there, were the affairs which at Kellynch Hall were treated as of such general publicity and pervading interest; yet, with all this experience, she believed she must now submit to feel that | in this house three times this summer." Anne said what was proper, and enquired after her husband. "Oh! Charles is out shooting. I have not seen him since seven o'clock. He would go, though I told him how ill I was. He said he should not stay out long; but he has never come back, and now it is almost one. I assure you, I have not seen a soul this whole long morning." "You have had your little boys with you?" "Yes, as long as I could bear their noise; but they are so unmanageable that they do me more harm than good. Little Charles does not mind a word I say, and Walter is growing quite as bad." "Well, you will soon be better now," replied Anne, cheerfully. "You know I always cure you when I come. How are your neighbours at the Great House?" "I can give you no account of them. I have not seen one of them to-day, except Mr Musgrove, who just stopped and spoke through the window, but without getting off his horse; and though I told him how ill I was, not one of them have been near me. It did not happen to suit the Miss Musgroves, I suppose, and they never put themselves out of their way." "You will see them yet, perhaps, before the morning is gone. It is early." "I never want them, I assure you. They talk and laugh a great deal too much for me. Oh! Anne, I am so very unwell! It was quite unkind of you not to come on Thursday." "My dear Mary, recollect what a comfortable account you sent me of yourself! You wrote in the cheerfullest manner, and said you were perfectly well, and in no hurry for me; and that being the case, you must be aware that my wish would be to remain with Lady Russell to the last: and besides what I felt on her account, I have really been so busy, have had so much to do, that I could not very conveniently have left Kellynch sooner." "Dear me! what can you possibly have to do?" "A great many things, I assure you. More than I can recollect in a moment; but I can tell you some. I have been making a duplicate of the catalogue of my father's books and pictures. I have been several times in the garden with Mackenzie, trying to understand, and make him understand, which of Elizabeth's plants are for Lady Russell. I have had all my own little concerns to arrange, books and music to divide, and all my trunks to repack, from not having understood in time what was intended as to the waggons: and one thing I have had to do, Mary, of a more trying nature: going to almost every house in the parish, as a sort of take-leave. I was told that they wished it. But all these things took up a great deal of time." "Oh! well!" and after a moment's pause, "but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday." "Did you go then? I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party." "Oh yes! I went. I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter with me till this morning. It would have been strange if I had not gone."<|quote|>"I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party."</|quote|>"Nothing remarkable. One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one's own. Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded! They are both so very large, and take up so much room; and Mr Musgrove always sits forward. So, there was I, crowded into the back seat with Henrietta and Louisa; and I think it very likely that my illness to-day may be owing to it." A little further perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on Anne's side produced nearly a cure on Mary's. She could soon sit upright on the sofa, and began to hope she might be able to leave it by dinner-time. Then, forgetting to think of it, she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nosegay; then, she ate her cold meat; and then she was well enough to propose a little walk. "Where shall we go?" said she, when they were ready. "I suppose you will not like to call at the Great House before they have been to see you?" "I have not the smallest objection on that account," replied Anne. "I should never think of standing on such ceremony with people I know so well as Mrs and the Miss Musgroves." "Oh! but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible. They ought to feel what is due to you as my sister. However, we may as well go and sit with them a little while, and when we have that over, we can enjoy our walk." Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent; but she had ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that, though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither family could now do without it. To the Great | Persuasion |
Mr. Bender asked, | No speaker | But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, | word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her | as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy | charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the | lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on, “I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.” “You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out--!” She gave him in fine his choice. But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to | a significantly small canvas. “You ladies want to get there before the road’s so much as laid or the country’s safe! Do you know what this _here_ is?” he at once went on. “Oh, you can’t have _that!_” she cried as with full authority-- “and you must really understand that you can’t have everything. You mustn’t expect to ravage Dedborough.” He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. “I guess it’s a bogus Cuyp--but I know Lord Theign _has_ things. He won’t do business?” “He’s not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place,” Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression--!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on, “I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.” “You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out--!” She gave him in fine his choice. But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his prudence. “Are there any pictures in the park?” Lady Grace’s facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more play. “We find our park itself rather a picture.” Mr. Bender’s own levity at any rate persisted. “With a big Temperance school-feast?” “Mr. Bender’s a great judge of pictures,” Lady Sandgate said as to forestall any impression of excessive freedom. “Will there be more tea?” he pursued, almost presuming on this. It showed Lady Grace for comparatively candid and literal. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of tea.” This appeared to determine Mr. Bender. “Well, Lady Grace, I’m after pictures, but I take them ‘neat.’ May I go right round here?” “Perhaps, love,” Lady Sandgate at once said, “you’ll let me show him.” “A moment, dear” --Lady Grace gently demurred. “Do go round,” she conformably added to Mr. Bender; “take your ease and your time. Everything’s open and visible, and, with our whole company dispersed, you’ll have the place to yourself.” He rose, in his genial mass, to the opportunity. “I’ll be in clover--sure!” But present to him was the richest corner of the pasture, which he could fluently enough name. “And I’ll find ‘The | been--had simply overlooked and neglected his vast wholly-shaven face, which thus showed not so much for perfunctorily scamped as for not treated, as for neither formed nor fondled nor finished, at all. Nothing seemed to have been done for it but what the razor and the sponge, the tooth-brush and the looking-glass could officiously do; it had in short resisted any possibly finer attrition at the hands of fifty years of offered experience. It had developed on the lines, if lines they could be called, of the mere scoured and polished and initialled “mug” rather than to any effect of a composed physiognomy; though we must at the same time add that its wearer carried this featureless disk as with the warranted confidence that might have attended a warning headlight or a glaring motor-lamp. The object, however one named it, showed you at least where he was, and most often that he was straight upon you. It was fearlessly and resistingly across the path of his advance that Lady Sandgate had thrown herself, and indeed with such success that he soon connected her demonstration with a particular motive. “For your grandmother, Lady Sandgate?” he then returned. “For my grandmother’s _mother_, Mr. Bender--the most beautiful woman of her time and the greatest of all Lawrences, no matter whose; as you quite acknowledged, you know, in our talk in Bruton Street.” Mr. Bender bethought himself further--yet drawing it out; as if the familiar fact of his being “made up to” had never had such special softness and warmth of pressure. “Do you want very, _very_ much----?” She had already caught him up. “‘Very, very much’ for her? Well, Mr. Bender,” she smilingly replied, “I think I should like her full value.” “I mean” --he kindly discriminated-- “do you want so badly to work her off?” “It would be an intense convenience to me--so much so that your telegram made me at once fondly hope you’d be arriving to conclude.” Such measure of response as he had good-naturedly given her was the mere frayed edge of a mastering detachment, the copious, impatient range elsewhere of his true attention. Somehow, however, he still seemed kind even while, turning his back upon her, he moved off to look at one of the several, the famous Dedborough pictures--stray specimens, by every presumption, lost a little in the whole bright bigness. “‘Conclude’?” he echoed as he approached a significantly small canvas. “You ladies want to get there before the road’s so much as laid or the country’s safe! Do you know what this _here_ is?” he at once went on. “Oh, you can’t have _that!_” she cried as with full authority-- “and you must really understand that you can’t have everything. You mustn’t expect to ravage Dedborough.” He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. “I guess it’s a bogus Cuyp--but I know Lord Theign _has_ things. He won’t do business?” “He’s not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place,” Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression--!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on, “I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.” “You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out--!” She gave him in fine his choice. But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his prudence. “Are there any pictures in the park?” Lady Grace’s facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more play. “We find our park itself rather a picture.” Mr. Bender’s own levity at any rate persisted. “With a big Temperance school-feast?” “Mr. Bender’s a great judge of pictures,” Lady Sandgate said as to forestall any impression of excessive freedom. “Will there be more tea?” he pursued, almost presuming on this. It showed Lady Grace for comparatively candid and literal. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of tea.” This appeared to determine Mr. Bender. “Well, Lady Grace, I’m after pictures, but I take them ‘neat.’ May I go right round here?” “Perhaps, love,” Lady Sandgate at once said, “you’ll let me show him.” “A moment, dear” --Lady Grace gently demurred. “Do go round,” she conformably added to Mr. Bender; “take your ease and your time. Everything’s open and visible, and, with our whole company dispersed, you’ll have the place to yourself.” He rose, in his genial mass, to the opportunity. “I’ll be in clover--sure!” But present to him was the richest corner of the pasture, which he could fluently enough name. “And I’ll find ‘The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge’?” She indicated, off to the right, where a stately perspective opened, the quarter of the saloon to which we have seen Mr. Banks retire. “At the very end of _those_ rooms.” He had wide eyes for the vista. “About thirty in a row, hey?” And he was already off. “I’ll work right through!” III Left with her friend, Lady Grace had a prompt question. “Lord John warned me he was ‘funny’--but you already know him?” There might have been a sense of embarrassment in the way in which, as to gain time, Lady Sandgate pointed, instead of answering, to the small picture pronounced upon by Mr. Bender. “He thinks your little Cuyp a fraud.” “That one?” Lady Grace could but stare. “The wretch!” However, she made, without alarm, no more of it; she returned to her previous question. “You’ve met him before?” “Just a little--in town. Being ‘after pictures’” Lady Sandgate explained, “he has been after my great-grandmother.” “She,” said Lady Grace with amusement, “must have found him funny! But he can clearly take care of himself, while Kitty takes care of Lord John, and while you, if you’ll be so good, go back to support father--in the hour of his triumph: which he wants you so much to witness that he complains of your desertion and goes so far as to speak of you as sneaking away.” Lady Sandgate, with a slight flush, turned it over. “I delight in his triumph, and whatever I do is at least above board; but if it’s a question of support, aren’t you yourself failing him quite as much?” This had, however, no effect on the girl’s confidence. “Ah, my dear, I’m not at all the same thing, and as I’m the person in the world he least misses--” Well, such a fact spoke for itself. “You’ve been free to return and wait for Lord John?” --that was the sense in which the elder woman appeared to prefer to understand it as speaking. The tone of it, none the less, led her companion immediately, though very quietly, to correct her. “I’ve not come back to wait for Lord John.” “Then he hasn’t told you--if you’ve talked--with what idea he has come?” Lady Grace had for a further correction the same shade of detachment. “Kitty has told me--what it suits her to pretend to suppose.” “And Kitty’s pretensions and suppositions | of it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on, “I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.” “You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,”<|quote|>Mr. Bender asked,</|quote|>“is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out--!” She gave him in fine his choice. But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his prudence. “Are there any pictures in the park?” Lady Grace’s facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more play. “We find our park itself rather a picture.” Mr. Bender’s own levity at any rate persisted. “With a big Temperance school-feast?” “Mr. Bender’s a great judge of pictures,” Lady Sandgate said as to forestall any impression of excessive freedom. “Will there be more tea?” he pursued, almost presuming on this. It showed Lady Grace for comparatively candid and literal. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of tea.” This appeared to determine Mr. Bender. “Well, Lady Grace, I’m after pictures, but I take them ‘neat.’ May I go right round here?” “Perhaps, love,” Lady Sandgate at once said, “you’ll let me show him.” “A moment, dear” --Lady Grace gently demurred. “Do go round,” she conformably added to Mr. Bender; “take your ease and your time. Everything’s open and visible, and, with our whole company dispersed, you’ll have the place to yourself.” He rose, in his genial mass, to the opportunity. “I’ll be in clover--sure!” But present to him was the richest corner of the pasture, which he could fluently enough name. “And I’ll find ‘The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge’?” She indicated, off to the right, where a stately perspective opened, the quarter of the saloon to which we have seen Mr. Banks retire. “At the very end of _those_ rooms.” He had wide eyes for the vista. “About thirty in a row, hey?” And he was already off. “I’ll work right through!” III Left with her friend, Lady Grace had a prompt question. “Lord John warned me he was ‘funny’--but you already know him?” There might have been a sense of embarrassment in the way in which, as to gain time, Lady Sandgate pointed, instead of answering, to the small picture pronounced upon by Mr. Bender. “He thinks your little Cuyp a fraud.” “That one?” Lady Grace could but stare. “The wretch!” However, she made, without alarm, no more of it; she returned to her previous question. “You’ve met him before?” “Just a little--in town. Being ‘after pictures’” Lady Sandgate explained, “he has been after my great-grandmother.” “She,” said Lady Grace with amusement, “must have found him funny! But he can clearly take care of | The Outcry |
said Charles, unclasping her. | No speaker | s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you | telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you talking about?" "Now, Charles, you | put his arm round her waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy married life. "But you haven t listened, Charles." "What s wrong?" "I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you talking about?" "Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty--" "Look here, I m in no mood for foolery. It s no morning for it either." "I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she s got it--your mother s left it to her--and you | question in this case was correct, for his wife replied, "She wants Howards End." "Howards End? Now, Crane, just don t forget to put on the Stepney wheel." "No, sir." "Now, mind you don t forget, for I--Come, little woman." When they were out of the chauffeur s sight he put his arm round her waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy married life. "But you haven t listened, Charles." "What s wrong?" "I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you talking about?" "Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty--" "Look here, I m in no mood for foolery. It s no morning for it either." "I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she s got it--your mother s left it to her--and you ve all got to move out!" "HOWARDS END?" "HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came dashing out of the shubbery. "Dolly, go back at once! My father s much annoyed with you. Charles" "--she hit herself wildly--" "come in at once to father. He | was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his heart had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his father. But it was not a morning for complaints. Ordering the motor to be round after lunch, he joined his wife, who had all the while been pouring out some incoherent story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel. "Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she want?" When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted. Want was to him the only cause of action. And the question in this case was correct, for his wife replied, "She wants Howards End." "Howards End? Now, Crane, just don t forget to put on the Stepney wheel." "No, sir." "Now, mind you don t forget, for I--Come, little woman." When they were out of the chauffeur s sight he put his arm round her waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy married life. "But you haven t listened, Charles." "What s wrong?" "I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you talking about?" "Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty--" "Look here, I m in no mood for foolery. It s no morning for it either." "I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she s got it--your mother s left it to her--and you ve all got to move out!" "HOWARDS END?" "HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came dashing out of the shubbery. "Dolly, go back at once! My father s much annoyed with you. Charles" "--she hit herself wildly--" "come in at once to father. He s had a letter that s too awful." Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across the gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the unprolific vine. He exclaimed, "Schlegels again!" and as if to complete chaos, Dolly said, "Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her." "Come in, all three of you!" cried his father, no longer inert. "Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?" "Oh, Mr. Wilcox--" "I told you not to go out to the garage. I ve heard you all shouting in the garden. I won | this did him disservice with Charles, who thought charm in a man rather rot, and had soon got rid of the little Italian beast with whom they had started. "Charles--" His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost, a dainty black column, her little face and elaborate mourning hat forming the capital thereof. "One minute, I m busy. Well, Crane, who s been driving it, do you suppose?" "Don t know, I m sure, sir. No one s driven it since I ve been back, but, of course, there s the fortnight I ve been away with the other car in Yorkshire." The mud came off easily. "Charles, your father s down. Something s happened. He wants you in the house at once. Oh, Charles!" "Wait, dear, wait a minute. Who had the key of the garage while you were away, Crane?" "The gardener, sir." "Do you mean to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?" "No, sir; no one s had the motor out, sir." "Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?" "I can t, of course, say for the time I ve been in Yorkshire. No more mud now, sir." Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his heart had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his father. But it was not a morning for complaints. Ordering the motor to be round after lunch, he joined his wife, who had all the while been pouring out some incoherent story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel. "Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she want?" When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted. Want was to him the only cause of action. And the question in this case was correct, for his wife replied, "She wants Howards End." "Howards End? Now, Crane, just don t forget to put on the Stepney wheel." "No, sir." "Now, mind you don t forget, for I--Come, little woman." When they were out of the chauffeur s sight he put his arm round her waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy married life. "But you haven t listened, Charles." "What s wrong?" "I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you talking about?" "Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty--" "Look here, I m in no mood for foolery. It s no morning for it either." "I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she s got it--your mother s left it to her--and you ve all got to move out!" "HOWARDS END?" "HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came dashing out of the shubbery. "Dolly, go back at once! My father s much annoyed with you. Charles" "--she hit herself wildly--" "come in at once to father. He s had a letter that s too awful." Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across the gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the unprolific vine. He exclaimed, "Schlegels again!" and as if to complete chaos, Dolly said, "Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her." "Come in, all three of you!" cried his father, no longer inert. "Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?" "Oh, Mr. Wilcox--" "I told you not to go out to the garage. I ve heard you all shouting in the garden. I won t have it. Come in." He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand. "Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can t discuss private matters in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here; read these. See what you make." Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the procession. The first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs. Wilcox had desired her, when the funeral should be over, to forward the enclosed. The enclosed--it was from his mother herself. She had written: "To my husband: I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End." "I suppose we re going to have a talk about this?" he remarked, ominously calm. "Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly--" "Well, let s sit down." "Come, Evie, don t waste time, sit--down." In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of yesterday--indeed, of this morning suddenly receded into a past so remote that they seemed scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy breathings were heard. They were calming themselves. Charles, to steady them further, read the enclosure out loud: "A note in my mother s handwriting, in an envelope addressed to | man could take it up without, she felt that something unique had fallen out of her life. Their grief, though less poignant than their father s, grew from deeper roots, for a wife may be replaced; a mother never. Charles would go back to the office. There was little at Howards End. The contents of his mother s will had long been known to them. There were no legacies, no annuities, none of the posthumous bustle with which some of the dead prolong their activities. Trusting her husband, she had left him everything without reserve. She was quite a poor woman--the house had been all her dowry, and the house would come to Charles in time. Her watercolours Mr. Wilcox intended to reserve for Paul, while Evie would take the jewellery and lace. How easily she slipped out of life! Charles thought the habit laudable, though he did not intend to adopt it himself, whereas Margaret would have seen in it an almost culpable indifference to earthly fame. Cynicism--not the superficial cynicism that snarls and sneers, but the cynicism that can go with courtesy and tenderness--that was the note of Mrs. Wilcox s will. She wanted not to vex people. That accomplished, the earth might freeze over her for ever. No, there was nothing for Charles to wait for. He could not go on with his honeymoon, so he would go up to London and work--he felt too miserable hanging about. He and Dolly would have the furnished flat while his father rested quietly in the country with Evie. He could also keep an eye on his own little house, which was being painted and decorated for him in one of the Surrey suburbs, and in which he hoped to install himself soon after Christmas. Yes, he would go up after lunch in his new motor, and the town servants, who had come down for the funeral, would go up by train. He found his father s chauffeur in the garage, said "Morning" without looking at the man s face, and bending over the car, continued: "Hullo! my new car s been driven!" "Has it, sir?" "Yes," said Charles, getting rather red; "and whoever s driven it hasn t cleaned it properly, for there s mud on the axle. Take it off." The man went for the cloths without a word. He was a chauffeur as ugly as sin--not that this did him disservice with Charles, who thought charm in a man rather rot, and had soon got rid of the little Italian beast with whom they had started. "Charles--" His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost, a dainty black column, her little face and elaborate mourning hat forming the capital thereof. "One minute, I m busy. Well, Crane, who s been driving it, do you suppose?" "Don t know, I m sure, sir. No one s driven it since I ve been back, but, of course, there s the fortnight I ve been away with the other car in Yorkshire." The mud came off easily. "Charles, your father s down. Something s happened. He wants you in the house at once. Oh, Charles!" "Wait, dear, wait a minute. Who had the key of the garage while you were away, Crane?" "The gardener, sir." "Do you mean to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?" "No, sir; no one s had the motor out, sir." "Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?" "I can t, of course, say for the time I ve been in Yorkshire. No more mud now, sir." Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his heart had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his father. But it was not a morning for complaints. Ordering the motor to be round after lunch, he joined his wife, who had all the while been pouring out some incoherent story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel. "Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she want?" When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted. Want was to him the only cause of action. And the question in this case was correct, for his wife replied, "She wants Howards End." "Howards End? Now, Crane, just don t forget to put on the Stepney wheel." "No, sir." "Now, mind you don t forget, for I--Come, little woman." When they were out of the chauffeur s sight he put his arm round her waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy married life. "But you haven t listened, Charles." "What s wrong?" "I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you talking about?" "Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty--" "Look here, I m in no mood for foolery. It s no morning for it either." "I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she s got it--your mother s left it to her--and you ve all got to move out!" "HOWARDS END?" "HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came dashing out of the shubbery. "Dolly, go back at once! My father s much annoyed with you. Charles" "--she hit herself wildly--" "come in at once to father. He s had a letter that s too awful." Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across the gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the unprolific vine. He exclaimed, "Schlegels again!" and as if to complete chaos, Dolly said, "Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her." "Come in, all three of you!" cried his father, no longer inert. "Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?" "Oh, Mr. Wilcox--" "I told you not to go out to the garage. I ve heard you all shouting in the garden. I won t have it. Come in." He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand. "Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can t discuss private matters in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here; read these. See what you make." Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the procession. The first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs. Wilcox had desired her, when the funeral should be over, to forward the enclosed. The enclosed--it was from his mother herself. She had written: "To my husband: I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End." "I suppose we re going to have a talk about this?" he remarked, ominously calm. "Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly--" "Well, let s sit down." "Come, Evie, don t waste time, sit--down." In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of yesterday--indeed, of this morning suddenly receded into a past so remote that they seemed scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy breathings were heard. They were calming themselves. Charles, to steady them further, read the enclosure out loud: "A note in my mother s handwriting, in an envelope addressed to my father, sealed. Inside:" I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End. "No date, no signature. Forwarded through the matron of that nursing home. Now, the question is--" Dolly interrupted him. "But I say that note isn t legal. Houses ought to be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely." Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in front of either ear--a symptom that she had not yet learnt to respect, and she asked whether she might see the note. Charles looked at his father for permission, who said abstractedly, "Give it her." She seized it, and at once exclaimed: "Why, it s only in pencil! I said so. Pencil never counts." "We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly," said Mr. Wilcox, speaking from out of his fortress. "We are aware of that. Legally, I should be justified in tearing it up and throwing it into the fire. Of course, my dear, we consider you as one of the family, but it will be better if you do not interfere with what you do not understand." Charles, vexed both with his father and his wife, then repeated: "The question is--" He had cleared a space of the breakfast-table from plates and knives, so that he could draw patterns on the tablecloth. "The question is whether Miss Schlegel, during the fortnight we were all away, whether she unduly--" He stopped. "I don t think that," said his father, whose nature was nobler than his son s. "Don t think what?" "That she would have--that it is a case of undue influence. No, to my mind the question is the--the invalid s condition at the time she wrote." "My dear father, consult an expert if you like, but I don t admit it is my mother s writing." "Why, you just said it was!" cried Dolly. "Never mind if I did," he blazed out; "and hold your tongue." The poor little wife coloured at this, and, drawing her handkerchief from her pocket, shed a few tears. No one noticed her. Evie was scowling like an angry boy. The two men were gradually assuming the manner of the committee-room. They were both at their best when serving on committees. They did not make the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk, but disposed of them item by item, sharply. Caligraphy was the item before them now, and | "Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?" "I can t, of course, say for the time I ve been in Yorkshire. No more mud now, sir." Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his heart had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his father. But it was not a morning for complaints. Ordering the motor to be round after lunch, he joined his wife, who had all the while been pouring out some incoherent story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel. "Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she want?" When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted. Want was to him the only cause of action. And the question in this case was correct, for his wife replied, "She wants Howards End." "Howards End? Now, Crane, just don t forget to put on the Stepney wheel." "No, sir." "Now, mind you don t forget, for I--Come, little woman." When they were out of the chauffeur s sight he put his arm round her waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy married life. "But you haven t listened, Charles." "What s wrong?" "I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel s got it." "Got what?"<|quote|>said Charles, unclasping her.</|quote|>"What the dickens are you talking about?" "Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty--" "Look here, I m in no mood for foolery. It s no morning for it either." "I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she s got it--your mother s left it to her--and you ve all got to move out!" "HOWARDS END?" "HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came dashing out of the shubbery. "Dolly, go back at once! My father s much annoyed with you. Charles" "--she hit herself wildly--" "come in at once to father. He s had a letter that s too awful." Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across the gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the unprolific vine. He exclaimed, "Schlegels again!" and as if to complete chaos, Dolly said, "Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her." "Come in, all three of you!" cried his father, no longer inert. "Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?" "Oh, Mr. Wilcox--" "I told you not to go out to the garage. I ve heard you all shouting in the garden. I won t have it. Come in." He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand. "Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can t discuss private matters in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here; read these. See what you make." Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the procession. The first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs. Wilcox had desired her, when the funeral should be over, to forward the enclosed. The enclosed--it was from his mother herself. She had written: "To my husband: I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End." "I suppose we re going to have a talk about this?" he remarked, ominously calm. "Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly--" "Well, let s sit down." "Come, Evie, don t waste time, sit--down." In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of yesterday--indeed, of this morning suddenly receded into a past so remote that they seemed scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy breathings were heard. They were calming themselves. Charles, to steady them further, read the enclosure out loud: "A note in my mother s handwriting, in an envelope addressed to my father, sealed. Inside:" I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End. "No date, no signature. Forwarded through the matron of that nursing home. Now, the question is--" Dolly interrupted him. "But I say that note isn t legal. Houses ought to be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely." Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in front of either ear--a symptom that she had not yet learnt to respect, and she asked whether she might see the note. Charles looked at his father for permission, who said abstractedly, "Give it her." She seized it, and at once exclaimed: "Why, it s only in pencil! I said so. Pencil never counts." "We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly," said Mr. Wilcox, speaking | Howards End |
"Not badsome," | Startsev | pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as | as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev | off to walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But | Ivan Petrovitch said to him. Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic tone: "Unhappy woman, die!" And every one roared with laughter. "It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the street. He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the town. Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. | his talents. Laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "Badsome," "Hugeous," "Thank you most dumbly," and so on. But that was not all. When the guests, replete and satisfied, trooped into the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there bustled about them the footman Pavlusha, or, as he was called in the family, Pava--a lad of fourteen with shaven head and chubby cheeks. "Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him. Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic tone: "Unhappy woman, die!" And every one roared with laughter. "It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the street. He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the town. Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. All the doctors of the town had been at the Turkins'; at last it was the district doctor's turn. Vera Iosifovna wrote him a touching letter in which she begged him to come and relieve her sufferings. Startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the Turkins'.... He really did something for Vera Iosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he was a wonderful and exceptional doctor. But it was not for the sake of her migraine that he visited the Turkins' now.... It was a holiday. Ekaterina Ivanovna finished her long, | before," said Ivan Petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stood up. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything better." All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and she listened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure was expressive of triumph. "Splendid, superb!" "Splendid," said Startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm. "Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. "At the Conservatoire?" "No, I am only preparing for the Conservatoire, and till now have been working with Madame Zavlovsky." "Have you finished at the high school here?" "Oh, no," Vera Iosifovna answered for her, "We have teachers for her at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or a boarding school, you know. While a young girl is growing up, she ought to be under no influence but her mother's." "All the same, I'm going to the Conservatoire," said Ekaterina Ivanovna. "No. Kitten loves her mamma. Kitten won't grieve papa and mamma." "No, I'm going, I'm going," said Ekaterina Ivanovna, with playful caprice and stamping her foot. And at supper it was Ivan Petrovitch who displayed his talents. Laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "Badsome," "Hugeous," "Thank you most dumbly," and so on. But that was not all. When the guests, replete and satisfied, trooped into the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there bustled about them the footman Pavlusha, or, as he was called in the family, Pava--a lad of fourteen with shaven head and chubby cheeks. "Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him. Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic tone: "Unhappy woman, die!" And every one roared with laughter. "It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the street. He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the town. Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. All the doctors of the town had been at the Turkins'; at last it was the district doctor's turn. Vera Iosifovna wrote him a touching letter in which she begged him to come and relieve her sufferings. Startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the Turkins'.... He really did something for Vera Iosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he was a wonderful and exceptional doctor. But it was not for the sake of her migraine that he visited the Turkins' now.... It was a holiday. Ekaterina Ivanovna finished her long, wearisome exercises on the piano. Then they sat a long time in the dining-room, drinking tea, and Ivan Petrovitch told some amusing story. Then there was a ring and he had to go into the hall to welcome a guest; Startsev took advantage of the momentary commotion, and whispered to Ekaterina Ivanovna in great agitation: "For God's sake, I entreat you, don't torment me; let us go into the garden!" She shrugged her shoulders, as though perplexed and not knowing what he wanted of her, but she got up and went. "You play the piano for three or four hours," he said, following her; "then you sit with your mother, and there is no possibility of speaking to you. Give me a quarter of an hour at least, I beseech you." Autumn was approaching, and it was quiet and melancholy in the old garden; the dark leaves lay thick in the walks. It was already beginning to get dark early. "I haven't seen you for a whole week," Startsev went on, "and if you only knew what suffering it is! Let us sit down. Listen to me." They had a favourite place in the garden; a seat under an old | plain. Vera Iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess founded a school, a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in love with a wandering artist; she read of what never happens in real life, and yet it was pleasant to listen--it was comfortable, and such agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one had no desire to get up. "Not badsome ..." Ivan Petrovitch said softly. And one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, said hardly audibly: "Yes ... truly...." One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band was playing and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listening to "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked Vera Iosifovna. "No," she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it away in my cupboard. Why publish?" she explained. "We have enough to live on." And for some reason every one sighed. "And now, Kitten, you play something," Ivan Petrovitch said to his daughter. The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled with the din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture.... Ekaterina Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hill and going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping; and at the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violent exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over her forehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at Dyalizh among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watch this young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure creature, and to listen to these noisy, tedious but still cultured sounds, was so pleasant, so novel.... "Well, Kitten, you have never played that before," said Ivan Petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stood up. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything better." All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and she listened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure was expressive of triumph. "Splendid, superb!" "Splendid," said Startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm. "Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. "At the Conservatoire?" "No, I am only preparing for the Conservatoire, and till now have been working with Madame Zavlovsky." "Have you finished at the high school here?" "Oh, no," Vera Iosifovna answered for her, "We have teachers for her at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or a boarding school, you know. While a young girl is growing up, she ought to be under no influence but her mother's." "All the same, I'm going to the Conservatoire," said Ekaterina Ivanovna. "No. Kitten loves her mamma. Kitten won't grieve papa and mamma." "No, I'm going, I'm going," said Ekaterina Ivanovna, with playful caprice and stamping her foot. And at supper it was Ivan Petrovitch who displayed his talents. Laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "Badsome," "Hugeous," "Thank you most dumbly," and so on. But that was not all. When the guests, replete and satisfied, trooped into the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there bustled about them the footman Pavlusha, or, as he was called in the family, Pava--a lad of fourteen with shaven head and chubby cheeks. "Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him. Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic tone: "Unhappy woman, die!" And every one roared with laughter. "It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the street. He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the town. Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. All the doctors of the town had been at the Turkins'; at last it was the district doctor's turn. Vera Iosifovna wrote him a touching letter in which she begged him to come and relieve her sufferings. Startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the Turkins'.... He really did something for Vera Iosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he was a wonderful and exceptional doctor. But it was not for the sake of her migraine that he visited the Turkins' now.... It was a holiday. Ekaterina Ivanovna finished her long, wearisome exercises on the piano. Then they sat a long time in the dining-room, drinking tea, and Ivan Petrovitch told some amusing story. Then there was a ring and he had to go into the hall to welcome a guest; Startsev took advantage of the momentary commotion, and whispered to Ekaterina Ivanovna in great agitation: "For God's sake, I entreat you, don't torment me; let us go into the garden!" She shrugged her shoulders, as though perplexed and not knowing what he wanted of her, but she got up and went. "You play the piano for three or four hours," he said, following her; "then you sit with your mother, and there is no possibility of speaking to you. Give me a quarter of an hour at least, I beseech you." Autumn was approaching, and it was quiet and melancholy in the old garden; the dark leaves lay thick in the walks. It was already beginning to get dark early. "I haven't seen you for a whole week," Startsev went on, "and if you only knew what suffering it is! Let us sit down. Listen to me." They had a favourite place in the garden; a seat under an old spreading maple. And now they sat down on this seat. "What do you want?" said Ekaterina Ivanovna drily, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I have not seen you for a whole week; I have not heard you for so long. I long passionately, I thirst for your voice. Speak." She fascinated him by her freshness, the naïve expression of her eyes and cheeks. Even in the way her dress hung on her, he saw something extraordinarily charming, touching in its simplicity and naïve grace; and at the same time, in spite of this naïveté, she seemed to him intelligent and developed beyond her years. He could talk with her about literature, about art, about anything he liked; could complain to her of life, of people, though it sometimes happened in the middle of serious conversation she would laugh inappropriately or run away into the house. Like almost all girls of her neighbourhood, she had read a great deal (as a rule, people read very little in S----, and at the lending library they said if it were not for the girls and the young Jews, they might as well shut up the library). This afforded Startsev infinite delight; he used to ask her eagerly every time what she had been reading the last few days, and listened enthralled while she told him. "What have you been reading this week since I saw you last?" he asked now. "Do please tell me." "I have been reading Pisemsky." "What exactly?" "'A Thousand Souls,'" answered Kitten. "And what a funny name Pisemsky had--Alexey Feofilaktitch!" "Where are you going?" cried Startsev in horror, as she suddenly got up and walked towards the house. "I must talk to you; I want to explain myself.... Stay with me just five minutes, I supplicate you!" She stopped as though she wanted to say something, then awkwardly thrust a note into his hand, ran home and sat down to the piano again. "Be in the cemetery," Startsev read, "at eleven o'clock to-night, near the tomb of Demetti." "Well, that's not at all clever," he thought, coming to himself. "Why the cemetery? What for?" It was clear: Kitten was playing a prank. Who would seriously dream of making an appointment at night in the cemetery far out of the town, when it might have been arranged in the street or in the town gardens? And was it in keeping with | sounds, was so pleasant, so novel.... "Well, Kitten, you have never played that before," said Ivan Petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stood up. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything better." All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and she listened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure was expressive of triumph. "Splendid, superb!" "Splendid," said Startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm. "Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. "At the Conservatoire?" "No, I am only preparing for the Conservatoire, and till now have been working with Madame Zavlovsky." "Have you finished at the high school here?" "Oh, no," Vera Iosifovna answered for her, "We have teachers for her at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or a boarding school, you know. While a young girl is growing up, she ought to be under no influence but her mother's." "All the same, I'm going to the Conservatoire," said Ekaterina Ivanovna. "No. Kitten loves her mamma. Kitten won't grieve papa and mamma." "No, I'm going, I'm going," said Ekaterina Ivanovna, with playful caprice and stamping her foot. And at supper it was Ivan Petrovitch who displayed his talents. Laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "Badsome," "Hugeous," "Thank you most dumbly," and so on. But that was not all. When the guests, replete and satisfied, trooped into the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there bustled about them the footman Pavlusha, or, as he was called in the family, Pava--a lad of fourteen with shaven head and chubby cheeks. "Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him. Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic tone: "Unhappy woman, die!" And every one roared with laughter. "It's entertaining," thought Startsev, as he went out into the street. He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk home to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty.<|quote|>"Not badsome,"</|quote|>he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. II Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. But one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the town. Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. All the doctors of the town had been at the Turkins'; at last it was the district doctor's turn. Vera Iosifovna wrote him a touching letter in which she begged him to come and relieve her sufferings. Startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the Turkins'.... He really did something for Vera Iosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he was a wonderful and exceptional doctor. But it was not for the sake of her migraine that he visited the Turkins' now.... It was a holiday. Ekaterina Ivanovna finished her long, wearisome exercises on the piano. Then they sat a long time in the dining-room, drinking tea, and Ivan Petrovitch told some amusing story. Then there was a ring and he had to go into the hall to welcome a guest; Startsev took advantage of the | The Lady and the Dog and Other Stories (4) |
Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured: | No speaker | don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful | of photographs and said, "No, don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she | names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent. "Signorino, domani faremo--" "Oh, bother that man!" But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that!" "Look at the lights going over the bridge." "But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't | you came back to me. So possibly you know." He turned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried her to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one another's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent. "Signorino, domani faremo--" "Oh, bother that man!" But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that!" "Look at the lights going over the bridge." "But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy" "--she kissed him--" "I remember on how little it all | He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish, too, that Mr. Beebe--" "You may well wish that." "He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in us again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I wish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run." "Perhaps." Then he said more gently: "Well, I acted the truth--the only thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know." He turned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried her to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one another's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent. "Signorino, domani faremo--" "Oh, bother that man!" But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that!" "Look at the lights going over the bridge." "But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy" "--she kissed him--" "I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to silly Greece, and become different for ever." "But she did know," said George; "she did see my father, surely. He said so." "Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so." George was obstinate again. "My father," said he, "saw her, and I prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. A | its name is, still shows." "San Miniato. I'll just finish your sock." "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro," called the cabman, with engaging certainty. George told him that he was mistaken; they had no money to throw away on driving. And the people who had not meant to help--the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils, the Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up the forces that had swept him into this contentment. "Anything good in Freddy's letter?" "Not yet." His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: the Honeychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever. "What does he say?" "Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in the spring--he has known it for six months--that if mother wouldn't give her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy--" "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--" "But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up from the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish, too, that Mr. Beebe--" "You may well wish that." "He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in us again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I wish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run." "Perhaps." Then he said more gently: "Well, I acted the truth--the only thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know." He turned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried her to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one another's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent. "Signorino, domani faremo--" "Oh, bother that man!" But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that!" "Look at the lights going over the bridge." "But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy" "--she kissed him--" "I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to silly Greece, and become different for ever." "But she did know," said George; "she did see my father, surely. He said so." "Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so." George was obstinate again. "My father," said he, "saw her, and I prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was turning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her." Then they spoke of other things--the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett, but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who disliked any darkness, said: "It's clear that she knew. Then, why did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to church." They tried to piece the thing together. As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She rejected it, and said: "How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble muddle at the last moment." But something in the dying evening, in the roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell short of life, and George whispered: "Or did she mean it?" "Mean what?" "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--" Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: "Lascia, prego, lascia. Siamo sposati." "Scusi tanto, signora," he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his horse. "Buona | Constantinople, they did go round the world. The rest of us must be contented with a fair, but a less arduous, goal. Italiam petimus: we return to the Pension Bertolini. George said it was his old room. "No, it isn't," said Lucy; "because it is the room I had, and I had your father's room. I forget why; Charlotte made me, for some reason." He knelt on the tiled floor, and laid his face in her lap. "George, you baby, get up." "Why shouldn't I be a baby?" murmured George. Unable to answer this question, she put down his sock, which she was trying to mend, and gazed out through the window. It was evening and again the spring. "Oh, bother Charlotte," she said thoughtfully. "What can such people be made of?" "Same stuff as parsons are made of." "Nonsense!" "Quite right. It is nonsense." "Now you get up off the cold floor, or you'll be starting rheumatism next, and you stop laughing and being so silly." "Why shouldn't I laugh?" he asked, pinning her with his elbows, and advancing his face to hers. "What's there to cry at? Kiss me here." He indicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome. He was a boy after all. When it came to the point, it was she who remembered the past, she into whose soul the iron had entered, she who knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to her strangely that he should be sometimes wrong. "Any letters?" he asked. "Just a line from Freddy." "Now kiss me here; then here." Then, threatened again with rheumatism, he strolled to the window, opened it (as the English will), and leant out. There was the parapet, there the river, there to the left the beginnings of the hills. The cab-driver, who at once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent, might be that very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion twelve months ago. A passion of gratitude--all feelings grow to passions in the South--came over the husband, and he blessed the people and the things who had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped himself, it is true, but how stupidly! All the fighting that mattered had been done by others--by Italy, by his father, by his wife. "Lucy, you come and look at the cypresses; and the church, whatever its name is, still shows." "San Miniato. I'll just finish your sock." "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro," called the cabman, with engaging certainty. George told him that he was mistaken; they had no money to throw away on driving. And the people who had not meant to help--the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils, the Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up the forces that had swept him into this contentment. "Anything good in Freddy's letter?" "Not yet." His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: the Honeychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever. "What does he say?" "Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in the spring--he has known it for six months--that if mother wouldn't give her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy--" "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--" "But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up from the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish, too, that Mr. Beebe--" "You may well wish that." "He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in us again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I wish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run." "Perhaps." Then he said more gently: "Well, I acted the truth--the only thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know." He turned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried her to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one another's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent. "Signorino, domani faremo--" "Oh, bother that man!" But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that!" "Look at the lights going over the bridge." "But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy" "--she kissed him--" "I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to silly Greece, and become different for ever." "But she did know," said George; "she did see my father, surely. He said so." "Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so." George was obstinate again. "My father," said he, "saw her, and I prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was turning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her." Then they spoke of other things--the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett, but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who disliked any darkness, said: "It's clear that she knew. Then, why did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to church." They tried to piece the thing together. As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She rejected it, and said: "How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble muddle at the last moment." But something in the dying evening, in the roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell short of life, and George whispered: "Or did she mean it?" "Mean what?" "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--" Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: "Lascia, prego, lascia. Siamo sposati." "Scusi tanto, signora," he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his horse. "Buona sera--e grazie." "Niente." The cabman drove away singing. "Mean what, George?" He whispered: "Is it this? Is this possible? I'll put a marvel to you. That your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment we met, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like this--of course, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she hoped. I can't explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept me alive in you all the summer; how she gave you no peace; how month after month she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted her--or she couldn't have described us as she did to her friend. There are details--it burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen, Lucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, but in the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us happy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do believe that, far down in her heart, far below all speech and behaviour, she is glad." "It is impossible," murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiences of her own heart, she said: "No--it is just possible." Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited, love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows of winter into the Mediterranean. | bitterness: the Honeychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever. "What does he say?" "Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in the spring--he has known it for six months--that if mother wouldn't give her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy--" "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--" "But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up from the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish, too, that Mr. Beebe--" "You may well wish that." "He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in us again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I wish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run." "Perhaps." Then he said more gently: "Well, I acted the truth--the only thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know." He turned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried her to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one another's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt. They were silent. "Signorino, domani faremo--" "Oh, bother that man!" But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be rude to him."<|quote|>Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured:</|quote|>"Mr. Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be to a man like that!" "Look at the lights going over the bridge." "But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy" "--she kissed him--" "I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to silly Greece, and become different for ever." "But she did know," said George; "she did see my father, surely. He said so." "Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so." George was obstinate again. "My father," said he, "saw her, and I prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was turning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her." Then they spoke of other things--the desultory talk of those who have been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly in each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett, but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who disliked any darkness, said: "It's clear that she knew. Then, why did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to church." They tried to piece the thing together. As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She rejected it, and said: "How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble muddle at the last moment." But something in the dying evening, in the roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell short of life, and George whispered: "Or did she mean it?" "Mean what?" "Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--" Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: "Lascia, prego, lascia. Siamo sposati." "Scusi tanto, signora," he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his horse. "Buona sera--e grazie." "Niente." The cabman drove away singing. "Mean what, George?" He whispered: "Is it this? Is this possible? I'll put a marvel to you. That your cousin | A Room With A View |
inquired Sikes. | No speaker | voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I | speaking in a very low voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I mean, my dear," said the | chimney-piece. "There," said Sikes, smacking his lips. "Now I'm ready." "For business?" inquired the Jew. "For business," replied Sikes; "so say what you've got to say." "About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?" said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I mean, my dear," said the Jew. "He knows what I mean, Nancy; don't he?" "No, he don't," sneered Mr. Sikes. "Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking | furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a "life-preserver" that hung over the chimney-piece. "There," said Sikes, smacking his lips. "Now I'm ready." "For business?" inquired the Jew. "For business," replied Sikes; "so say what you've got to say." "About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?" said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I mean, my dear," said the Jew. "He knows what I mean, Nancy; don't he?" "No, he don't," sneered Mr. Sikes. "Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d'ye mean?" "Hush, Bill, hush!" said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; "somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us." "Let 'em hear!" said | setting his lips to it. "What! You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?" inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. "Ugh!" With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once. The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a "life-preserver" that hung over the chimney-piece. "There," said Sikes, smacking his lips. "Now I'm ready." "For business?" inquired the Jew. "For business," replied Sikes; "so say what you've got to say." "About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?" said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I mean, my dear," said the Jew. "He knows what I mean, Nancy; don't he?" "No, he don't," sneered Mr. Sikes. "Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d'ye mean?" "Hush, Bill, hush!" said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; "somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us." "Let 'em hear!" said Sikes; "I don't care." But as Mr. Sikes _did_ care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. "There, there," said the Jew, coaxingly. "It was only my caution, nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey; when is it to be done, Bill, eh? When is it to be done? Such plate, my dear, such plate!" said the Jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation. "Not at all," replied Sikes coldly. "Not to be done at all!" echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair. | friend had not met, since she had interfered in behalf of Oliver. All doubts upon the subject, if he had any, were speedily removed by the young lady's behaviour. She took her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and bade Fagin draw up his, without saying more about it: for it was a cold night, and no mistake. "It is cold, Nancy dear," said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny hands over the fire. "It seems to go right through one," added the old man, touching his side. "It must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart," said Mr. Sikes. "Give him something to drink, Nancy. Burn my body, make haste! It's enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean old carcase shivering in that way, like a ugly ghost just rose from the grave." Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were many: which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids. Sikes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off. "Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill," replied the Jew, putting down the glass after just setting his lips to it. "What! You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?" inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. "Ugh!" With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once. The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a "life-preserver" that hung over the chimney-piece. "There," said Sikes, smacking his lips. "Now I'm ready." "For business?" inquired the Jew. "For business," replied Sikes; "so say what you've got to say." "About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?" said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I mean, my dear," said the Jew. "He knows what I mean, Nancy; don't he?" "No, he don't," sneered Mr. Sikes. "Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d'ye mean?" "Hush, Bill, hush!" said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; "somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us." "Let 'em hear!" said Sikes; "I don't care." But as Mr. Sikes _did_ care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. "There, there," said the Jew, coaxingly. "It was only my caution, nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey; when is it to be done, Bill, eh? When is it to be done? Such plate, my dear, such plate!" said the Jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation. "Not at all," replied Sikes coldly. "Not to be done at all!" echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair. "No, not at all," rejoined Sikes. "At least it can't be a put-up job, as we expected." "Then it hasn't been properly gone about," said the Jew, turning pale with anger. "Don't tell me!" "But I will tell you," retorted Sikes. "Who are you that's not to be told? I tell you that Toby Crackit has been hanging about the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants in line." "Do you mean to tell me, Bill," said the Jew: softening as the other grew heated: "that neither of the two men in the house can be got over?" "Yes, I do mean to tell you so," replied Sikes. "The old lady has had 'em these twenty years; and if you were to give 'em five hundred pound, they wouldn't be in it." "But do you mean to say, my dear," remonstrated the Jew, "that the women can't be got over?" "Not a bit of it," replied Sikes. "Not by flash Toby Crackit?" said the Jew incredulously. "Think what women are, Bill," "No; not even by flash Toby Crackit," replied Sikes. "He says he's worn sham whiskers, and a canary waistcoat, the whole blessed time he's | which Oliver had been conveyed, was in the neighborhood of Whitechapel. The Jew stopped for an instant at the corner of the street; and, glancing suspiciously round, crossed the road, and struck off in the direction of the Spitalfields. The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal. He kept on his course, through many winding and narrow ways, until he reached Bethnal Green; then, turning suddenly off to the left, he soon became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in that close and densely-populated quarter. The Jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed to be at all bewildered, either by the darkness of the night, or the intricacies of the way. He hurried through several alleys and streets, and at length turned into one, lighted only by a single lamp at the farther end. At the door of a house in this street, he knocked; having exchanged a few muttered words with the person who opened it, he walked upstairs. A dog growled as he touched the handle of a room-door; and a man's voice demanded who was there. "Only me, Bill; only me, my dear," said the Jew looking in. "Bring in your body then," said Sikes. "Lie down, you stupid brute! Don't you know the devil when he's got a great-coat on?" Apparently, the dog had been somewhat deceived by Mr. Fagin's outer garment; for as the Jew unbuttoned it, and threw it over the back of a chair, he retired to the corner from which he had risen: wagging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as it was in his nature to be. "Well!" said Sikes. "Well, my dear," replied the Jew. "Ah! Nancy." The latter recognition was uttered with just enough of embarrassment to imply a doubt of its reception; for Mr. Fagin and his young friend had not met, since she had interfered in behalf of Oliver. All doubts upon the subject, if he had any, were speedily removed by the young lady's behaviour. She took her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and bade Fagin draw up his, without saying more about it: for it was a cold night, and no mistake. "It is cold, Nancy dear," said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny hands over the fire. "It seems to go right through one," added the old man, touching his side. "It must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart," said Mr. Sikes. "Give him something to drink, Nancy. Burn my body, make haste! It's enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean old carcase shivering in that way, like a ugly ghost just rose from the grave." Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were many: which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids. Sikes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off. "Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill," replied the Jew, putting down the glass after just setting his lips to it. "What! You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?" inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. "Ugh!" With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once. The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a "life-preserver" that hung over the chimney-piece. "There," said Sikes, smacking his lips. "Now I'm ready." "For business?" inquired the Jew. "For business," replied Sikes; "so say what you've got to say." "About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?" said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I mean, my dear," said the Jew. "He knows what I mean, Nancy; don't he?" "No, he don't," sneered Mr. Sikes. "Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d'ye mean?" "Hush, Bill, hush!" said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; "somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us." "Let 'em hear!" said Sikes; "I don't care." But as Mr. Sikes _did_ care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. "There, there," said the Jew, coaxingly. "It was only my caution, nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey; when is it to be done, Bill, eh? When is it to be done? Such plate, my dear, such plate!" said the Jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation. "Not at all," replied Sikes coldly. "Not to be done at all!" echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair. "No, not at all," rejoined Sikes. "At least it can't be a put-up job, as we expected." "Then it hasn't been properly gone about," said the Jew, turning pale with anger. "Don't tell me!" "But I will tell you," retorted Sikes. "Who are you that's not to be told? I tell you that Toby Crackit has been hanging about the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants in line." "Do you mean to tell me, Bill," said the Jew: softening as the other grew heated: "that neither of the two men in the house can be got over?" "Yes, I do mean to tell you so," replied Sikes. "The old lady has had 'em these twenty years; and if you were to give 'em five hundred pound, they wouldn't be in it." "But do you mean to say, my dear," remonstrated the Jew, "that the women can't be got over?" "Not a bit of it," replied Sikes. "Not by flash Toby Crackit?" said the Jew incredulously. "Think what women are, Bill," "No; not even by flash Toby Crackit," replied Sikes. "He says he's worn sham whiskers, and a canary waistcoat, the whole blessed time he's been loitering down there, and it's all of no use." "He should have tried mustachios and a pair of military trousers, my dear," said the Jew. "So he did," rejoined Sikes, "and they warn't of no more use than the other plant." The Jew looked blank at this information. After ruminating for some minutes with his chin sunk on his breast, he raised his head and said, with a deep sigh, that if flash Toby Crackit reported aright, he feared the game was up. "And yet," said the old man, dropping his hands on his knees, "it's a sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our hearts upon it." "So it is," said Mr. Sikes. "Worse luck!" A long silence ensued; during which the Jew was plunged in deep thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy perfectly demoniacal. Sikes eyed him furtively from time to time. Nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker, sat with her eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all that passed. "Fagin," said Sikes, abruptly breaking the stillness that prevailed; "is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it's safely done from the outside?" "Yes," said the Jew, as suddenly rousing himself. "Is it a bargain?" inquired Sikes. "Yes, my dear, yes," rejoined the Jew; his eyes glistening, and every muscle in his face working, with the excitement that the inquiry had awakened. "Then," said Sikes, thrusting aside the Jew's hand, with some disdain, "let it come off as soon as you like. Toby and me were over the garden-wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of the door and shutters. The crib's barred up at night like a jail; but there's one part we can crack, safe and softly." "Which is that, Bill?" asked the Jew eagerly. "Why," whispered Sikes, "as you cross the lawn" "Yes?" said the Jew, bending his head forward, with his eyes almost starting out of it. "Umph!" cried Sikes, stopping short, as the girl, scarcely moving her head, looked suddenly round, and pointed for an instant to the Jew's face. "Never mind which part it is. You can't do it without me, I know; but it's best to be on the safe side when one deals with you." "As you like, my dear, as you like" replied the Jew. "Is there no help wanted, but yours | bade Fagin draw up his, without saying more about it: for it was a cold night, and no mistake. "It is cold, Nancy dear," said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny hands over the fire. "It seems to go right through one," added the old man, touching his side. "It must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart," said Mr. Sikes. "Give him something to drink, Nancy. Burn my body, make haste! It's enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean old carcase shivering in that way, like a ugly ghost just rose from the grave." Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were many: which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids. Sikes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off. "Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill," replied the Jew, putting down the glass after just setting his lips to it. "What! You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?" inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. "Ugh!" With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he did at once. The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner, and a "life-preserver" that hung over the chimney-piece. "There," said Sikes, smacking his lips. "Now I'm ready." "For business?" inquired the Jew. "For business," replied Sikes; "so say what you've got to say." "About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?" said the Jew, drawing his chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice. "Yes. Wot about it?"<|quote|>inquired Sikes.</|quote|>"Ah! you know what I mean, my dear," said the Jew. "He knows what I mean, Nancy; don't he?" "No, he don't," sneered Mr. Sikes. "Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names; don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d'ye mean?" "Hush, Bill, hush!" said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; "somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us." "Let 'em hear!" said Sikes; "I don't care." But as Mr. Sikes _did_ care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. "There, there," said the Jew, coaxingly. "It was only my caution, nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey; when is it to be done, Bill, eh? When is it to be done? Such plate, my dear, such plate!" said the Jew: rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation. "Not at all," replied Sikes coldly. "Not to be done at all!" echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair. "No, not at all," rejoined Sikes. "At least it can't be a put-up job, as we expected." "Then it hasn't been properly gone about," said the Jew, turning pale with anger. "Don't tell me!" "But I will tell you," retorted Sikes. "Who are you that's not to be told? I tell you that Toby Crackit has been hanging about the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants in line." "Do you mean to tell me, Bill," said the Jew: softening as the other grew heated: "that neither of the two men in the house can be got over?" "Yes, I do mean to tell you so," replied Sikes. "The old lady has had 'em these twenty years; and if you were to give 'em five hundred pound, they wouldn't be | Oliver Twist |
"Mary" | John Cavendish | He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought | right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression | said Mary quietly. "You _do_ see, don't you, that _you_ have no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?" John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face. "No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away. "None!" She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. "Mary" his voice was very quiet now "are you in love with this | wishes?" "If I choose." "You defy me?" "No, but I deny your right to criticize my actions. Have _you_ no friends of whom I should disapprove?" John fell back a pace. The colour ebbed slowly from his face. "What do you mean?" he said, in an unsteady voice. "You see!" said Mary quietly. "You _do_ see, don't you, that _you_ have no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?" John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face. "No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away. "None!" She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. "Mary" his voice was very quiet now "are you in love with this fellow Bauerstein?" She hesitated, and suddenly there swept across her face a strange expression, old as the hills, yet with something eternally young about it. So might some Egyptian sphinx have smiled. She freed herself quietly from his arm, and spoke over her shoulder. "Perhaps," she said; and then swiftly | shoulders, "if it is only village gossip that you mind!" "But it isn't. I've had enough of the fellow hanging about. He's a Polish Jew, anyway." "A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the" she looked at him "stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman." Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice. I did not wonder that the blood rose to John's face in a crimson tide. "Mary!" "Well?" Her tone did not change. The pleading died out of his voice. "Am I to understand that you will continue to see Bauerstein against my express wishes?" "If I choose." "You defy me?" "No, but I deny your right to criticize my actions. Have _you_ no friends of whom I should disapprove?" John fell back a pace. The colour ebbed slowly from his face. "What do you mean?" he said, in an unsteady voice. "You see!" said Mary quietly. "You _do_ see, don't you, that _you_ have no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?" John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face. "No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away. "None!" She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. "Mary" his voice was very quiet now "are you in love with this fellow Bauerstein?" She hesitated, and suddenly there swept across her face a strange expression, old as the hills, yet with something eternally young about it. So might some Egyptian sphinx have smiled. She freed herself quietly from his arm, and spoke over her shoulder. "Perhaps," she said; and then swiftly passed out of the little glade, leaving John standing there as though he had been turned to stone. Rather ostentatiously, I stepped forward, crackling some dead branches with my feet as I did so. John turned. Luckily, he took it for granted that I had only just come upon the scene. "Hullo, Hastings. Have you seen the little fellow safely back to his cottage? Quaint little chap! Is he any good, though, really?" "He was considered one of the finest detectives of his day." "Oh, well, I suppose there must be something in it, then. What a rotten world it | the world. Then I yawned. I thought about the crime, and it struck me as being very unreal and far off. I yawned again. Probably, I thought, it really never happened. Of course, it was all a bad dream. The truth of the matter was that it was Lawrence who had murdered Alfred Inglethorp with a croquet mallet. But it was absurd of John to make such a fuss about it, and to go shouting out: "I tell you I won't have it!" I woke up with a start. At once I realized that I was in a very awkward predicament. For, about twelve feet away from me, John and Mary Cavendish were standing facing each other, and they were evidently quarrelling. And, quite as evidently, they were unaware of my vicinity, for before I could move or speak John repeated the words which had aroused me from my dream. "I tell you, Mary, I won't have it." Mary's voice came, cool and liquid: "Have _you_ any right to criticize my actions?" "It will be the talk of the village! My mother was only buried on Saturday, and here you are gadding about with the fellow." "Oh," she shrugged her shoulders, "if it is only village gossip that you mind!" "But it isn't. I've had enough of the fellow hanging about. He's a Polish Jew, anyway." "A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the" she looked at him "stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman." Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice. I did not wonder that the blood rose to John's face in a crimson tide. "Mary!" "Well?" Her tone did not change. The pleading died out of his voice. "Am I to understand that you will continue to see Bauerstein against my express wishes?" "If I choose." "You defy me?" "No, but I deny your right to criticize my actions. Have _you_ no friends of whom I should disapprove?" John fell back a pace. The colour ebbed slowly from his face. "What do you mean?" he said, in an unsteady voice. "You see!" said Mary quietly. "You _do_ see, don't you, that _you_ have no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?" John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face. "No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away. "None!" She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. "Mary" his voice was very quiet now "are you in love with this fellow Bauerstein?" She hesitated, and suddenly there swept across her face a strange expression, old as the hills, yet with something eternally young about it. So might some Egyptian sphinx have smiled. She freed herself quietly from his arm, and spoke over her shoulder. "Perhaps," she said; and then swiftly passed out of the little glade, leaving John standing there as though he had been turned to stone. Rather ostentatiously, I stepped forward, crackling some dead branches with my feet as I did so. John turned. Luckily, he took it for granted that I had only just come upon the scene. "Hullo, Hastings. Have you seen the little fellow safely back to his cottage? Quaint little chap! Is he any good, though, really?" "He was considered one of the finest detectives of his day." "Oh, well, I suppose there must be something in it, then. What a rotten world it is, though!" "You find it so?" I asked. "Good Lord, yes! There's this terrible business to start with. Scotland Yard men in and out of the house like a jack-in-the-box! Never know where they won't turn up next. Screaming headlines in every paper in the country damn all journalists, I say! Do you know there was a whole crowd staring in at the lodge gates this morning. Sort of Madame Tussaud's chamber of horrors business that can be seen for nothing. Pretty thick, isn't it?" "Cheer up, John!" I said soothingly. "It can't last for ever." "Can't it, though? It can last long enough for us never to be able to hold up our heads again." "No, no, you're getting morbid on the subject." "Enough to make a man morbid, to be stalked by beastly journalists and stared at by gaping moon-faced idiots, wherever he goes! But there's worse than that." "What?" John lowered his voice: "Have you ever thought, Hastings it's a nightmare to me who did it? I can't help feeling sometimes it must have been an accident. Because because who could have done it? Now Inglethorp's out of the way, there's no one else; no one, I | stiffness of my manner. Still, the fervour of his words went towards the appeasing of my just displeasure. I thawed. "I gave Lawrence your message," I said. "And what did he say? He was entirely puzzled?" "Yes. I am quite sure he had no idea of what you meant." I had expected Poirot to be disappointed; but, to my surprise, he replied that that was as he had thought, and that he was very glad. My pride forbade me to ask any questions. Poirot switched off on another tack. "Mademoiselle Cynthia was not at lunch to-day? How was that?" "She is at the hospital again. She resumed work to-day." "Ah, she is an industrious little demoiselle. And pretty too. She is like pictures I have seen in Italy. I would rather like to see that dispensary of hers. Do you think she would show it to me?" "I am sure she would be delighted. It's an interesting little place." "Does she go there every day?" "She has all Wednesdays off, and comes back to lunch on Saturdays. Those are her only times off." "I will remember. Women are doing great work nowadays, and Mademoiselle Cynthia is clever oh, yes, she has brains, that little one." "Yes. I believe she has passed quite a stiff exam." "Without doubt. After all, it is very responsible work. I suppose they have very strong poisons there?" "Yes, she showed them to us. They are kept locked up in a little cupboard. I believe they have to be very careful. They always take out the key before leaving the room." "Indeed. It is near the window, this cupboard?" "No, right the other side of the room. Why?" Poirot shrugged his shoulders. "I wondered. That is all. Will you come in?" We had reached the cottage. "No. I think I'll be getting back. I shall go round the long way through the woods." The woods round Styles were very beautiful. After the walk across the open park, it was pleasant to saunter lazily through the cool glades. There was hardly a breath of wind, the very chirp of the birds was faint and subdued. I strolled on a little way, and finally flung myself down at the foot of a grand old beech-tree. My thoughts of mankind were kindly and charitable. I even forgave Poirot for his absurd secrecy. In fact, I was at peace with the world. Then I yawned. I thought about the crime, and it struck me as being very unreal and far off. I yawned again. Probably, I thought, it really never happened. Of course, it was all a bad dream. The truth of the matter was that it was Lawrence who had murdered Alfred Inglethorp with a croquet mallet. But it was absurd of John to make such a fuss about it, and to go shouting out: "I tell you I won't have it!" I woke up with a start. At once I realized that I was in a very awkward predicament. For, about twelve feet away from me, John and Mary Cavendish were standing facing each other, and they were evidently quarrelling. And, quite as evidently, they were unaware of my vicinity, for before I could move or speak John repeated the words which had aroused me from my dream. "I tell you, Mary, I won't have it." Mary's voice came, cool and liquid: "Have _you_ any right to criticize my actions?" "It will be the talk of the village! My mother was only buried on Saturday, and here you are gadding about with the fellow." "Oh," she shrugged her shoulders, "if it is only village gossip that you mind!" "But it isn't. I've had enough of the fellow hanging about. He's a Polish Jew, anyway." "A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the" she looked at him "stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman." Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice. I did not wonder that the blood rose to John's face in a crimson tide. "Mary!" "Well?" Her tone did not change. The pleading died out of his voice. "Am I to understand that you will continue to see Bauerstein against my express wishes?" "If I choose." "You defy me?" "No, but I deny your right to criticize my actions. Have _you_ no friends of whom I should disapprove?" John fell back a pace. The colour ebbed slowly from his face. "What do you mean?" he said, in an unsteady voice. "You see!" said Mary quietly. "You _do_ see, don't you, that _you_ have no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?" John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face. "No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away. "None!" She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. "Mary" his voice was very quiet now "are you in love with this fellow Bauerstein?" She hesitated, and suddenly there swept across her face a strange expression, old as the hills, yet with something eternally young about it. So might some Egyptian sphinx have smiled. She freed herself quietly from his arm, and spoke over her shoulder. "Perhaps," she said; and then swiftly passed out of the little glade, leaving John standing there as though he had been turned to stone. Rather ostentatiously, I stepped forward, crackling some dead branches with my feet as I did so. John turned. Luckily, he took it for granted that I had only just come upon the scene. "Hullo, Hastings. Have you seen the little fellow safely back to his cottage? Quaint little chap! Is he any good, though, really?" "He was considered one of the finest detectives of his day." "Oh, well, I suppose there must be something in it, then. What a rotten world it is, though!" "You find it so?" I asked. "Good Lord, yes! There's this terrible business to start with. Scotland Yard men in and out of the house like a jack-in-the-box! Never know where they won't turn up next. Screaming headlines in every paper in the country damn all journalists, I say! Do you know there was a whole crowd staring in at the lodge gates this morning. Sort of Madame Tussaud's chamber of horrors business that can be seen for nothing. Pretty thick, isn't it?" "Cheer up, John!" I said soothingly. "It can't last for ever." "Can't it, though? It can last long enough for us never to be able to hold up our heads again." "No, no, you're getting morbid on the subject." "Enough to make a man morbid, to be stalked by beastly journalists and stared at by gaping moon-faced idiots, wherever he goes! But there's worse than that." "What?" John lowered his voice: "Have you ever thought, Hastings it's a nightmare to me who did it? I can't help feeling sometimes it must have been an accident. Because because who could have done it? Now Inglethorp's out of the way, there's no one else; no one, I mean, except one of us." Yes, indeed, that was nightmare enough for any man! One of us? Yes, surely it must be so, unless - A new idea suggested itself to my mind. Rapidly, I considered it. The light increased. Poirot's mysterious doings, his hints they all fitted in. Fool that I was not to have thought of this possibility before, and what a relief for us all. "No, John," I said, "it isn't one of us. How could it be?" "I know, but, still, who else is there?" "Can't you guess?" "No." I looked cautiously round, and lowered my voice. "Dr. Bauerstein!" I whispered. "Impossible!" "Not at all." "But what earthly interest could he have in my mother's death?" "That I don't see," I confessed, "but I'll tell you this: Poirot thinks so." "Poirot? Does he? How do you know?" I told him of Poirot's intense excitement on hearing that Dr. Bauerstein had been at Styles on the fatal night, and added: "He said twice:" That alters everything.' "And I've been thinking. You know Inglethorp said he had put down the coffee in the hall? Well, it was just then that Bauerstein arrived. Isn't it possible that, as Inglethorp brought him through the hall, the doctor dropped something into the coffee in passing?" "H'm," said John. "It would have been very risky." "Yes, but it was possible." "And then, how could he know it was her coffee? No, old fellow, I don't think that will wash." But I had remembered something else. "You're quite right. That wasn't how it was done. Listen." And I then told him of the cocoa sample which Poirot had taken to be analysed. John interrupted just as I had done. "But, look here, Bauerstein had had it analysed already?" "Yes, yes, that's the point. I didn't see it either until now. Don't you understand? Bauerstein had it analysed that's just it! If Bauerstein's the murderer, nothing could be simpler than for him to substitute some ordinary cocoa for his sample, and send that to be tested. And of course they would find no strychnine! But no one would dream of suspecting Bauerstein, or think of taking another sample except Poirot," I added, with belated recognition. "Yes, but what about the bitter taste that cocoa won't disguise?" "Well, we've only his word for that. And there are other possibilities. He's admittedly one of the world's | actions?" "It will be the talk of the village! My mother was only buried on Saturday, and here you are gadding about with the fellow." "Oh," she shrugged her shoulders, "if it is only village gossip that you mind!" "But it isn't. I've had enough of the fellow hanging about. He's a Polish Jew, anyway." "A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the" she looked at him "stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman." Fire in her eyes, ice in her voice. I did not wonder that the blood rose to John's face in a crimson tide. "Mary!" "Well?" Her tone did not change. The pleading died out of his voice. "Am I to understand that you will continue to see Bauerstein against my express wishes?" "If I choose." "You defy me?" "No, but I deny your right to criticize my actions. Have _you_ no friends of whom I should disapprove?" John fell back a pace. The colour ebbed slowly from his face. "What do you mean?" he said, in an unsteady voice. "You see!" said Mary quietly. "You _do_ see, don't you, that _you_ have no right to dictate to _me_ as to the choice of my friends?" John glanced at her pleadingly, a stricken look on his face. "No right? Have I _no_ right, Mary?" he said unsteadily. He stretched out his hands.<|quote|>"Mary"</|quote|>For a moment, I thought she wavered. A softer expression came over her face, then suddenly she turned almost fiercely away. "None!" She was walking away when John sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. "Mary" his voice was very quiet now "are you in love with this fellow Bauerstein?" She hesitated, and suddenly there swept across her face a strange expression, old as the hills, yet with something eternally young about it. So might some Egyptian sphinx have smiled. She freed herself quietly from his arm, and spoke over her shoulder. "Perhaps," she said; and then swiftly passed out of the little glade, leaving John standing there as though he had been turned to stone. Rather ostentatiously, I stepped forward, crackling some dead branches with my feet as I did so. John turned. Luckily, he took it for granted that I had only just come upon the scene. "Hullo, Hastings. Have you seen the little fellow safely back to his cottage? Quaint little chap! Is he any good, though, really?" "He was considered one of the finest detectives of his day." "Oh, well, I suppose there must be something in it, then. What a rotten world it is, though!" "You find it so?" I asked. "Good Lord, yes! There's this terrible business to start with. Scotland Yard men in and | The Mysterious Affair At Styles |
"Can you make her out?" | Cassandra Otway | them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little | said, as William returned to them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he | I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t | and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one." "At this time of night?" Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their | and she understood that it cost him an effort. She knelt one knee upon the sofa where Cassandra sat, looking down at her cousin s face, which still moved with the speed of what she had been saying. "Are you happy?" she asked. "Oh, my dear!" Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were needed. "Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun," she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one." "At this time of night?" Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the | be with some one who, after a moment s groping, took a definite shape and solidified into the person of Mary Datchet. She drew the curtains so that the draperies met in deep folds in the middle of the window. "Ah, there she is," said Mr. Hilbery, who was standing swaying affably from side to side, with his back to the fire. "Come here, Katharine. I couldn t see where you d got to our children," he observed parenthetically, "have their uses I want you to go to my study, Katharine; go to the third shelf on the right-hand side of the door; take down Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley ; bring it to me. Then, Peyton, you will have to admit to the assembled company that you have been mistaken." "Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley. The third shelf on the right of the door," Katharine repeated. After all, one does not check children in their play, or rouse sleepers from their dreams. She passed William and Cassandra on her way to the door. "Stop, Katharine," said William, speaking almost as if he were conscious of her against his will. "Let me go." He rose, after a second s hesitation, and she understood that it cost him an effort. She knelt one knee upon the sofa where Cassandra sat, looking down at her cousin s face, which still moved with the speed of what she had been saying. "Are you happy?" she asked. "Oh, my dear!" Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were needed. "Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun," she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one." "At this time of night?" Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an occasional jet of flickering gas. The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a chair and holding a sheet of paper in his hand, at which he was looking as if he expected to go on immediately with what he was in the middle of saying to Mary Datchet. The apparition of an unknown lady in full evening dress seemed to disturb him. He took his pipe from his mouth, rose stiffly, and sat down again with a jerk. "Have you been dining out?" Mary asked. "Are you working?" Katharine inquired simultaneously. The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the question with some irritation. "Well, not exactly," Mary replied. "Mr. Basnett had brought some papers to show me. We were going through them, but we d almost done.... Tell us about your party." Mary had a | The elderly people were all grouped together round the fire. They seemed an independent, middle-aged community busy with its own concerns. They were telling stories very well and listening to them very graciously. But for her there was no obvious employment. "If anybody says anything, I shall say that I m looking at the river," she thought, for in her slavery to her family traditions, she was ready to pay for her transgression with some plausible falsehood. She pushed aside the blind and looked at the river. But it was a dark night and the water was barely visible. Cabs were passing, and couples were loitering slowly along the road, keeping as close to the railings as possible, though the trees had as yet no leaves to cast shadow upon their embraces. Katharine, thus withdrawn, felt her loneliness. The evening had been one of pain, offering her, minute after minute, plainer proof that things would fall out as she had foreseen. She had faced tones, gestures, glances; she knew, with her back to them, that William, even now, was plunging deeper and deeper into the delight of unexpected understanding with Cassandra. He had almost told her that he was finding it infinitely better than he could have believed. She looked out of the window, sternly determined to forget private misfortunes, to forget herself, to forget individual lives. With her eyes upon the dark sky, voices reached her from the room in which she was standing. She heard them as if they came from people in another world, a world antecedent to her world, a world that was the prelude, the antechamber to reality; it was as if, lately dead, she heard the living talking. The dream nature of our life had never been more apparent to her, never had life been more certainly an affair of four walls, whose objects existed only within the range of lights and fires, beyond which lay nothing, or nothing more than darkness. She seemed physically to have stepped beyond the region where the light of illusion still makes it desirable to possess, to love, to struggle. And yet her melancholy brought her no serenity. She still heard the voices within the room. She was still tormented by desires. She wished to be beyond their range. She wished inconsistently enough that she could find herself driving rapidly through the streets; she was even anxious to be with some one who, after a moment s groping, took a definite shape and solidified into the person of Mary Datchet. She drew the curtains so that the draperies met in deep folds in the middle of the window. "Ah, there she is," said Mr. Hilbery, who was standing swaying affably from side to side, with his back to the fire. "Come here, Katharine. I couldn t see where you d got to our children," he observed parenthetically, "have their uses I want you to go to my study, Katharine; go to the third shelf on the right-hand side of the door; take down Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley ; bring it to me. Then, Peyton, you will have to admit to the assembled company that you have been mistaken." "Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley. The third shelf on the right of the door," Katharine repeated. After all, one does not check children in their play, or rouse sleepers from their dreams. She passed William and Cassandra on her way to the door. "Stop, Katharine," said William, speaking almost as if he were conscious of her against his will. "Let me go." He rose, after a second s hesitation, and she understood that it cost him an effort. She knelt one knee upon the sofa where Cassandra sat, looking down at her cousin s face, which still moved with the speed of what she had been saying. "Are you happy?" she asked. "Oh, my dear!" Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were needed. "Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun," she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one." "At this time of night?" Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an occasional jet of flickering gas. The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a chair and holding a sheet of paper in his hand, at which he was looking as if he expected to go on immediately with what he was in the middle of saying to Mary Datchet. The apparition of an unknown lady in full evening dress seemed to disturb him. He took his pipe from his mouth, rose stiffly, and sat down again with a jerk. "Have you been dining out?" Mary asked. "Are you working?" Katharine inquired simultaneously. The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the question with some irritation. "Well, not exactly," Mary replied. "Mr. Basnett had brought some papers to show me. We were going through them, but we d almost done.... Tell us about your party." Mary had a ruffled appearance, as if she had been running her fingers through her hair in the course of her conversation; she was dressed more or less like a Russian peasant girl. She sat down again in a chair which looked as if it had been her seat for some hours; the saucer which stood upon the arm contained the ashes of many cigarettes. Mr. Basnett, a very young man with a fresh complexion and a high forehead from which the hair was combed straight back, was one of that group of "very able young men" suspected by Mr. Clacton, justly as it turned out, of an influence upon Mary Datchet. He had come down from one of the Universities not long ago, and was now charged with the reformation of society. In connection with the rest of the group of very able young men he had drawn up a scheme for the education of labor, for the amalgamation of the middle class and the working class, and for a joint assault of the two bodies, combined in the Society for the Education of Democracy, upon Capital. The scheme had already reached the stage in which it was permissible to hire an office and engage a secretary, and he had been deputed to expound the scheme to Mary, and make her an offer of the Secretaryship, to which, as a matter of principle, a small salary was attached. Since seven o clock that evening he had been reading out loud the document in which the faith of the new reformers was expounded, but the reading was so frequently interrupted by discussion, and it was so often necessary to inform Mary "in strictest confidence" of the private characters and evil designs of certain individuals and societies that they were still only half-way through the manuscript. Neither of them realized that the talk had already lasted three hours. In their absorption they had forgotten even to feed the fire, and yet both Mr. Basnett in his exposition, and Mary in her interrogation, carefully preserved a kind of formality calculated to check the desire of the human mind for irrelevant discussion. Her questions frequently began, "Am I to understand " and his replies invariably represented the views of some one called "we." By this time Mary was almost persuaded that she, too, was included in the "we," and agreed with Mr. Basnett in believing that | been more certainly an affair of four walls, whose objects existed only within the range of lights and fires, beyond which lay nothing, or nothing more than darkness. She seemed physically to have stepped beyond the region where the light of illusion still makes it desirable to possess, to love, to struggle. And yet her melancholy brought her no serenity. She still heard the voices within the room. She was still tormented by desires. She wished to be beyond their range. She wished inconsistently enough that she could find herself driving rapidly through the streets; she was even anxious to be with some one who, after a moment s groping, took a definite shape and solidified into the person of Mary Datchet. She drew the curtains so that the draperies met in deep folds in the middle of the window. "Ah, there she is," said Mr. Hilbery, who was standing swaying affably from side to side, with his back to the fire. "Come here, Katharine. I couldn t see where you d got to our children," he observed parenthetically, "have their uses I want you to go to my study, Katharine; go to the third shelf on the right-hand side of the door; take down Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley ; bring it to me. Then, Peyton, you will have to admit to the assembled company that you have been mistaken." "Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley. The third shelf on the right of the door," Katharine repeated. After all, one does not check children in their play, or rouse sleepers from their dreams. She passed William and Cassandra on her way to the door. "Stop, Katharine," said William, speaking almost as if he were conscious of her against his will. "Let me go." He rose, after a second s hesitation, and she understood that it cost him an effort. She knelt one knee upon the sofa where Cassandra sat, looking down at her cousin s face, which still moved with the speed of what she had been saying. "Are you happy?" she asked. "Oh, my dear!" Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were needed. "Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun," she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick.<|quote|>"Can you make her out?"</|quote|>Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one." "At this time of night?" Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an occasional jet of flickering gas. The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a chair and holding a sheet of paper in his hand, at which he was looking as if he expected to go on immediately with what he was in the middle of saying to Mary Datchet. The apparition of an unknown lady in full evening dress seemed to disturb him. He took his pipe from his mouth, rose stiffly, and sat down again with a jerk. "Have you been dining out?" Mary asked. "Are you working?" Katharine inquired simultaneously. The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the question with some irritation. "Well, not exactly," Mary replied. "Mr. Basnett had brought some papers to show me. We were going through them, but we d almost done.... Tell us about your party." Mary had a ruffled appearance, as if she had been running her fingers through her hair in the course of her conversation; she was dressed more or less like a Russian peasant girl. She sat down again in a chair which looked as if it had been her seat for some hours; the saucer which stood upon the arm contained the ashes of many cigarettes. Mr. Basnett, a very young man with a fresh complexion and a high forehead from which the hair was combed straight back, was one of that group of "very able young men" suspected by Mr. Clacton, justly as it turned out, of | Night And Day |
Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun." | No speaker | pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may | while. "Pakeha," he said; "Ngati pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may get it, old chap?" said | turned to Don, upon whose chest he laid the back of his hand. "Pakeha," he said in a deep voice; "Ngati pakeha." "Tell him he's another, Mas' Don," said Jem. The savage turned fiercely upon Jem, gripping Don's arm the while. "Pakeha," he said; "Ngati pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may get it, old chap?" said Jem. "Wants you to give him powder and gun." The savage nodded approval. "Yes," he said; "powder-gun--you give." A call from one of his companions summoned the savage away, and he joined them to partake of some rum and water, | themselves up with a conscious look of satisfaction and self-esteem, as they compared their physique with that of their visitors. One of them, a great fellow of about six feet three, and stout and muscular in proportion, stopped suddenly in front of Jem, at whom he seemed to frown, and turned to Don, upon whose chest he laid the back of his hand. "Pakeha," he said in a deep voice; "Ngati pakeha." "Tell him he's another, Mas' Don," said Jem. The savage turned fiercely upon Jem, gripping Don's arm the while. "Pakeha," he said; "Ngati pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may get it, old chap?" said Jem. "Wants you to give him powder and gun." The savage nodded approval. "Yes," he said; "powder-gun--you give." A call from one of his companions summoned the savage away, and he joined them to partake of some rum and water, which the captain had had prepared on their behalf. "Won't you come up and have some rum?" said the lieutenant to the tattooed Englishman in the boat. "No, thank you; but you may send me down the bottle if you like, sir. Look here! Shall I show you where you | broad-shouldered and handsome, and every man had his face tattooed in a curious scroll-like pattern, which ended on the sides of his nose. Their arms were spears and tomahawks, and two carried by a stout thong to the wrist a curiously carved object, which looked like a model of a paddle in pale green stone, carefully polished, but which on closer inspection seemed to be a weapon for using at close quarters. As they paraded the deck, with their quick eyes grasping everything, they made no scruple about placing their faces close to those of the sailors, and then drawing themselves up with a conscious look of satisfaction and self-esteem, as they compared their physique with that of their visitors. One of them, a great fellow of about six feet three, and stout and muscular in proportion, stopped suddenly in front of Jem, at whom he seemed to frown, and turned to Don, upon whose chest he laid the back of his hand. "Pakeha," he said in a deep voice; "Ngati pakeha." "Tell him he's another, Mas' Don," said Jem. The savage turned fiercely upon Jem, gripping Don's arm the while. "Pakeha," he said; "Ngati pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may get it, old chap?" said Jem. "Wants you to give him powder and gun." The savage nodded approval. "Yes," he said; "powder-gun--you give." A call from one of his companions summoned the savage away, and he joined them to partake of some rum and water, which the captain had had prepared on their behalf. "Won't you come up and have some rum?" said the lieutenant to the tattooed Englishman in the boat. "No, thank you; but you may send me down the bottle if you like, sir. Look here! Shall I show you where you can anchor?" The lieutenant glanced at his superior officer, and in answer to his nod turned to the man again. "Can you show us a safe anchorage?" "I can show you half-a-dozen, all safe," said the man. "When you like, I'll lead the way." "A boat shall follow you, and take soundings." The first cutter was manned with a well-armed crew, and the lieutenant stepped in--Don and Jem being two of the number. The tattooed Englishman shouted something to the men busy on the ship, and they unwillingly left the deck, slipped down into their canoe, and this led off, | leave their arms." The man communicated this to the occupants of the boat, and there was a good deal of excited conversation for a time. "That fellow's a runaway convict for certain, sir," said the lieutenant. "Shall we get him aboard, and keep him?" "No. Let him be. Perhaps he will prove very useful." "The chiefs say it isn't fair to ask them to come without their arms," said the tattooed Englishman. "How are they to know that you will not be treacherous?" "Tell them this is a king's ship, and if they behave themselves they have nothing to fear," said the captain. "Stop! Six of them can come aboard armed if they like. You can lead them and interpret." "I'll tell them, sir; but I won't come aboard, thank you. I'm a bit of a savage now, and the crew might make remarks, and we should quarrel." He turned to the savages, and the captain and lieutenant exchanged glances, while directly after the canoe was run alongside, and half-a-dozen of the people sprang up the side, and were admitted through the boarding netting to begin striding about the deck in the most fearless way. They were fine, herculean-looking fellows, broad-shouldered and handsome, and every man had his face tattooed in a curious scroll-like pattern, which ended on the sides of his nose. Their arms were spears and tomahawks, and two carried by a stout thong to the wrist a curiously carved object, which looked like a model of a paddle in pale green stone, carefully polished, but which on closer inspection seemed to be a weapon for using at close quarters. As they paraded the deck, with their quick eyes grasping everything, they made no scruple about placing their faces close to those of the sailors, and then drawing themselves up with a conscious look of satisfaction and self-esteem, as they compared their physique with that of their visitors. One of them, a great fellow of about six feet three, and stout and muscular in proportion, stopped suddenly in front of Jem, at whom he seemed to frown, and turned to Don, upon whose chest he laid the back of his hand. "Pakeha," he said in a deep voice; "Ngati pakeha." "Tell him he's another, Mas' Don," said Jem. The savage turned fiercely upon Jem, gripping Don's arm the while. "Pakeha," he said; "Ngati pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may get it, old chap?" said Jem. "Wants you to give him powder and gun." The savage nodded approval. "Yes," he said; "powder-gun--you give." A call from one of his companions summoned the savage away, and he joined them to partake of some rum and water, which the captain had had prepared on their behalf. "Won't you come up and have some rum?" said the lieutenant to the tattooed Englishman in the boat. "No, thank you; but you may send me down the bottle if you like, sir. Look here! Shall I show you where you can anchor?" The lieutenant glanced at his superior officer, and in answer to his nod turned to the man again. "Can you show us a safe anchorage?" "I can show you half-a-dozen, all safe," said the man. "When you like, I'll lead the way." "A boat shall follow you, and take soundings." The first cutter was manned with a well-armed crew, and the lieutenant stepped in--Don and Jem being two of the number. The tattooed Englishman shouted something to the men busy on the ship, and they unwillingly left the deck, slipped down into their canoe, and this led off, followed by the first cutter. "Give way, my lads!" said the lieutenant; "and mind this: there must be no straying off in any shape whatever--that is, if we land. These fellows seem friendly, but we are only a few among hundreds, and I suppose you know what your fate would be if they got the upper hand." "Make tattooed chiefs of us seemingly, sir," said Jem. "Or hot joints," said the officer laconically. "Ready there with that lead." The men rowed steadily on after the first canoe, and the man with the lead kept on making casts, but getting no bottom except at an excessive depth, as they went on, the scene growing more beautiful as each point was passed. The other canoes followed, and a curious thrill ran through Don, as he felt how helpless they would be if the savages proved treacherous, for the boat and her crew could have been overpowered at once; and the lieutenant was evidently uneasy, as he saw that they were taken right round to the back of a small island, gradually losing sight of the ship. But he had his duty to do, and keeping a strict watch, after passing the word | began to glide out from behind one of the islands, each canoe seeming to contain from eighty to a hundred men. The effect was beautiful, for the long, dark vessels, with their grotesque, quaintly carved prows and sterns, seemed to be like some strange living creatures working along paths of silver, so regularly went the paddles, turning the sea into lines of dazzling light. The men were armed with spears and tomahawks, and as they came nearer, some could be seen wearing black feathers tipped with white stuck in their hair, while their dark, nearly naked bodies glistened in the sun like bronze. "Are they coming to attack us, Jem?" said Don, who began to feel a strange thrill of excitement. "Dessay they'd like to, Mas' Don; but it strikes me they'd think twice about it. Why, we could sail right over those long thin boats of theirs, and send 'em all to the bottom." Just then there was an order from the deck, and more sail was taken in, till the ship hardly moved, as the canoes came dashing up, the men of the foremost singing a mournful kind of chorus as they paddled on. "Ship ahoy!" suddenly came from the first canoe. "What ship's that?" "His Majesty's sloop-of-war _Golden Danae_," shouted back the first lieutenant from the chains. "Tell your other boats to keep back, or we shall fire." "No, no, no: don't do that, sir! They don't mean fighting," came back from the boat; and a big savage, whose face was blue with tattooing, stood up in the canoe, and then turned and spoke to one of his companions, who rose and shouted to the occupants of the other canoes to cease paddling. "Speaks good English, sir," said the lieutenant to the captain. "Yes. Ask them what they want, and if it's peace." The lieutenant shouted this communication to the savage in the canoe. "Want, sir?" came back; "to trade with you for guns and powder, and to come aboard." "How is it you speak good English?" "Why, what should an Englishman speak?" "Then you are not a savage?" "Now do I look like one?" cried the man indignantly. "Of course; I forgot--I'm an Englishman on a visit to the country, and I've adopted their customs, sir--that's all." "Oh, I see," said the lieutenant, laughing; "ornaments and all." "May they come aboard, sir?" "Oh, yes; if they leave their arms." The man communicated this to the occupants of the boat, and there was a good deal of excited conversation for a time. "That fellow's a runaway convict for certain, sir," said the lieutenant. "Shall we get him aboard, and keep him?" "No. Let him be. Perhaps he will prove very useful." "The chiefs say it isn't fair to ask them to come without their arms," said the tattooed Englishman. "How are they to know that you will not be treacherous?" "Tell them this is a king's ship, and if they behave themselves they have nothing to fear," said the captain. "Stop! Six of them can come aboard armed if they like. You can lead them and interpret." "I'll tell them, sir; but I won't come aboard, thank you. I'm a bit of a savage now, and the crew might make remarks, and we should quarrel." He turned to the savages, and the captain and lieutenant exchanged glances, while directly after the canoe was run alongside, and half-a-dozen of the people sprang up the side, and were admitted through the boarding netting to begin striding about the deck in the most fearless way. They were fine, herculean-looking fellows, broad-shouldered and handsome, and every man had his face tattooed in a curious scroll-like pattern, which ended on the sides of his nose. Their arms were spears and tomahawks, and two carried by a stout thong to the wrist a curiously carved object, which looked like a model of a paddle in pale green stone, carefully polished, but which on closer inspection seemed to be a weapon for using at close quarters. As they paraded the deck, with their quick eyes grasping everything, they made no scruple about placing their faces close to those of the sailors, and then drawing themselves up with a conscious look of satisfaction and self-esteem, as they compared their physique with that of their visitors. One of them, a great fellow of about six feet three, and stout and muscular in proportion, stopped suddenly in front of Jem, at whom he seemed to frown, and turned to Don, upon whose chest he laid the back of his hand. "Pakeha," he said in a deep voice; "Ngati pakeha." "Tell him he's another, Mas' Don," said Jem. The savage turned fiercely upon Jem, gripping Don's arm the while. "Pakeha," he said; "Ngati pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may get it, old chap?" said Jem. "Wants you to give him powder and gun." The savage nodded approval. "Yes," he said; "powder-gun--you give." A call from one of his companions summoned the savage away, and he joined them to partake of some rum and water, which the captain had had prepared on their behalf. "Won't you come up and have some rum?" said the lieutenant to the tattooed Englishman in the boat. "No, thank you; but you may send me down the bottle if you like, sir. Look here! Shall I show you where you can anchor?" The lieutenant glanced at his superior officer, and in answer to his nod turned to the man again. "Can you show us a safe anchorage?" "I can show you half-a-dozen, all safe," said the man. "When you like, I'll lead the way." "A boat shall follow you, and take soundings." The first cutter was manned with a well-armed crew, and the lieutenant stepped in--Don and Jem being two of the number. The tattooed Englishman shouted something to the men busy on the ship, and they unwillingly left the deck, slipped down into their canoe, and this led off, followed by the first cutter. "Give way, my lads!" said the lieutenant; "and mind this: there must be no straying off in any shape whatever--that is, if we land. These fellows seem friendly, but we are only a few among hundreds, and I suppose you know what your fate would be if they got the upper hand." "Make tattooed chiefs of us seemingly, sir," said Jem. "Or hot joints," said the officer laconically. "Ready there with that lead." The men rowed steadily on after the first canoe, and the man with the lead kept on making casts, but getting no bottom except at an excessive depth, as they went on, the scene growing more beautiful as each point was passed. The other canoes followed, and a curious thrill ran through Don, as he felt how helpless they would be if the savages proved treacherous, for the boat and her crew could have been overpowered at once; and the lieutenant was evidently uneasy, as he saw that they were taken right round to the back of a small island, gradually losing sight of the ship. But he had his duty to do, and keeping a strict watch, after passing the word to his men to have their arms ready, he made them row on, with the lead going all the time. It was a curious experience, and Don's heart beat as he thought of the possibility of escaping from the boat, and taking to the shore, wondering the while what would be the consequences. The man in the leading canoe was evidently well treated, and quite one in authority; and if they landed and joined these people, why should not he and Jem become so too? These were a few of the passing thoughts suggested by the novelty and beauty of the place, which seemed ten times more attractive to those who had been for months cooped up on shipboard; but the toil in which he was engaged kept Don from taking more than a casual glance ashore. Bosun Jones sat at the tiller side by side with the lieutenant, and scraps of their conversation reached Don's ears. "Well, sir," said the former, "as you say, we're out of the reach of the sloop's guns; but if anything happens to us, we may be sure that the captain will take pretty good revenge." "And a deal of good that will do us, Jones," said the lieutenant. "I believe that scoundrel is leading us into a trap." "If he is, sir, I hope for one chance at him," said the boatswain; "I don't think I should miss my man." The leading canoe went on for quite a quarter of a mile after they had passed out of sight of the ship, the cutter following and taking soundings all the way, till they seemed to be quite shut in by high land, and the water was as smooth as a lake. There, about five hundred yards from the shore, the canoe stopped, and almost at the same moment the water shallowed, so that the man in the bows got soundings in ten fathoms; directly after, nine; then eight; and eight again, at which depth the water seemed to remain. "Come, that's honest leading!" said the lieutenant, brightening; "as snug a berth as a ship could be in. Why, Jones, what a position for a port!" "This do, sir?" shouted the tattooed Englishman. "You'll be quite in shelter here, and the water keeps the same right up to the shore." A few more soundings were taken, and then the boat returned to the ship, | make remarks, and we should quarrel." He turned to the savages, and the captain and lieutenant exchanged glances, while directly after the canoe was run alongside, and half-a-dozen of the people sprang up the side, and were admitted through the boarding netting to begin striding about the deck in the most fearless way. They were fine, herculean-looking fellows, broad-shouldered and handsome, and every man had his face tattooed in a curious scroll-like pattern, which ended on the sides of his nose. Their arms were spears and tomahawks, and two carried by a stout thong to the wrist a curiously carved object, which looked like a model of a paddle in pale green stone, carefully polished, but which on closer inspection seemed to be a weapon for using at close quarters. As they paraded the deck, with their quick eyes grasping everything, they made no scruple about placing their faces close to those of the sailors, and then drawing themselves up with a conscious look of satisfaction and self-esteem, as they compared their physique with that of their visitors. One of them, a great fellow of about six feet three, and stout and muscular in proportion, stopped suddenly in front of Jem, at whom he seemed to frown, and turned to Don, upon whose chest he laid the back of his hand. "Pakeha," he said in a deep voice; "Ngati pakeha." "Tell him he's another, Mas' Don," said Jem. The savage turned fiercely upon Jem, gripping Don's arm the while. "Pakeha," he said; "Ngati pakeha. Maori pakeha. My pakeha!"<|quote|>Then to Don--"You my pakeha. Give me powder--gun."</|quote|>"Don't you wish you may get it, old chap?" said Jem. "Wants you to give him powder and gun." The savage nodded approval. "Yes," he said; "powder-gun--you give." A call from one of his companions summoned the savage away, and he joined them to partake of some rum and water, which the captain had had prepared on their behalf. "Won't you come up and have some rum?" said the lieutenant to the tattooed Englishman in the boat. "No, thank you; but you may send me down the bottle if you like, sir. Look here! Shall I show you where you can anchor?" The lieutenant glanced at his superior officer, and in answer to his nod turned to the man again. "Can you show us a safe anchorage?" "I can show you half-a-dozen, all safe," said the man. "When you like, I'll lead the way." "A boat shall follow you, and take soundings." The first cutter was manned with a well-armed crew, and the lieutenant stepped in--Don and Jem being two of the number. The tattooed Englishman shouted something to the men busy on the ship, and they unwillingly left the deck, slipped down into their canoe, and this led off, followed by the first cutter. "Give way, my lads!" said the lieutenant; "and mind this: there must be no straying off in any shape whatever--that is, if we land. These fellows seem friendly, but we are only a few among hundreds, and I suppose you know what your fate would be if they got the upper hand." "Make tattooed chiefs of us seemingly, sir," said Jem. "Or hot joints," said the officer laconically. "Ready there with that lead." The men rowed steadily on after the first canoe, and the man with the lead kept on making | Don Lavington |
"You know him then," | Mrs. Dashwood | him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! | ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! to be sure I do. | Marianne s accident being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham. "Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is _he_ in the country? That is good news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year." "And what sort of a young man is he?" "As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent shot, and there is not a bolder rider in | all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming. Her imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a sprained ankle was disregarded. Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne s accident being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham. "Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is _he_ in the country? That is good news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year." "And what sort of a young man is he?" "As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England." "And is _that_ all you can say for him?" cried Marianne, indignantly. "But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his pursuits, his talents, and genius?" Sir John was rather puzzled. "Upon my soul," said he, "I do not know much about him as to all _that_. | their entering the house. But she had seen enough of him to join in all the admiration of the others, and with an energy which always adorned her praise. His person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn for the hero of a favourite story; and in his carrying her into the house with so little previous formality, there was a rapidity of thought which particularly recommended the action to her. Every circumstance belonging to him was interesting. His name was good, his residence was in their favourite village, and she soon found out that of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming. Her imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a sprained ankle was disregarded. Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne s accident being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham. "Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is _he_ in the country? That is good news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year." "And what sort of a young man is he?" "As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England." "And is _that_ all you can say for him?" cried Marianne, indignantly. "But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his pursuits, his talents, and genius?" Sir John was rather puzzled. "Upon my soul," said he, "I do not know much about him as to all _that_. But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw. Was she out with him today?" But Marianne could no more satisfy him as to the colour of Mr. Willoughby s pointer, than he could describe to her the shades of his mind. "But who is he?" said Elinor. "Where does he come from? Has he a house at Allenham?" On this point Sir John could give more certain intelligence; and he told them that Mr. Willoughby had no property of his own in the country; that he | vulgar, the gratitude and kindness of Mrs. Dashwood would have been secured by any act of attention to her child; but the influence of youth, beauty, and elegance, gave an interest to the action which came home to her feelings. She thanked him again and again; and, with a sweetness of address which always attended her, invited him to be seated. But this he declined, as he was dirty and wet. Mrs. Dashwood then begged to know to whom she was obliged. His name, he replied, was Willoughby, and his present home was at Allenham, from whence he hoped she would allow him the honour of calling tomorrow to enquire after Miss Dashwood. The honour was readily granted, and he then departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain. His manly beauty and more than common gracefulness were instantly the theme of general admiration, and the laugh which his gallantry raised against Marianne received particular spirit from his exterior attractions. Marianne herself had seen less of his person than the rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting her up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their entering the house. But she had seen enough of him to join in all the admiration of the others, and with an energy which always adorned her praise. His person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn for the hero of a favourite story; and in his carrying her into the house with so little previous formality, there was a rapidity of thought which particularly recommended the action to her. Every circumstance belonging to him was interesting. His name was good, his residence was in their favourite village, and she soon found out that of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming. Her imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a sprained ankle was disregarded. Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne s accident being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham. "Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is _he_ in the country? That is good news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year." "And what sort of a young man is he?" "As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England." "And is _that_ all you can say for him?" cried Marianne, indignantly. "But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his pursuits, his talents, and genius?" Sir John was rather puzzled. "Upon my soul," said he, "I do not know much about him as to all _that_. But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw. Was she out with him today?" But Marianne could no more satisfy him as to the colour of Mr. Willoughby s pointer, than he could describe to her the shades of his mind. "But who is he?" said Elinor. "Where does he come from? Has he a house at Allenham?" On this point Sir John could give more certain intelligence; and he told them that Mr. Willoughby had no property of his own in the country; that he resided there only while he was visiting the old lady at Allenham Court, to whom he was related, and whose possessions he was to inherit; adding, "Yes, yes, he is very well worth catching I can tell you, Miss Dashwood; he has a pretty little estate of his own in Somersetshire besides; and if I were you, I would not give him up to my younger sister, in spite of all this tumbling down hills. Miss Marianne must not expect to have all the men to herself. Brandon will be jealous, if she does not take care." "I do not believe," said Mrs. Dashwood, with a good humoured smile, "that Mr. Willoughby will be incommoded by the attempts of either of _my_ daughters towards what you call _catching him_. It is not an employment to which they have been brought up. Men are very safe with us, let them be ever so rich. I am glad to find, however, from what you say, that he is a respectable young man, and one whose acquaintance will not be ineligible." "He is as good a sort of fellow, I believe, as ever lived," repeated Sir John. "I remember last Christmas at a | glimpse of blue sky; and when they caught in their faces the animating gales of a high south-westerly wind, they pitied the fears which had prevented their mother and Elinor from sharing such delightful sensations. "Is there a felicity in the world," said Marianne, "superior to this? Margaret, we will walk here at least two hours." Margaret agreed, and they pursued their way against the wind, resisting it with laughing delight for about twenty minutes longer, when suddenly the clouds united over their heads, and a driving rain set full in their face. Chagrined and surprised, they were obliged, though unwillingly, to turn back, for no shelter was nearer than their own house. One consolation however remained for them, to which the exigence of the moment gave more than usual propriety, it was that of running with all possible speed down the steep side of the hill which led immediately to their garden gate. They set off. Marianne had at first the advantage, but a false step brought her suddenly to the ground; and Margaret, unable to stop herself to assist her, was involuntarily hurried along, and reached the bottom in safety. A gentleman carrying a gun, with two pointers playing round him, was passing up the hill and within a few yards of Marianne, when her accident happened. He put down his gun and ran to her assistance. She had raised herself from the ground, but her foot had been twisted in her fall, and she was scarcely able to stand. The gentleman offered his services; and perceiving that her modesty declined what her situation rendered necessary, took her up in his arms without farther delay, and carried her down the hill. Then passing through the garden, the gate of which had been left open by Margaret, he bore her directly into the house, whither Margaret was just arrived, and quitted not his hold till he had seated her in a chair in the parlour. Elinor and her mother rose up in amazement at their entrance, and while the eyes of both were fixed on him with an evident wonder and a secret admiration which equally sprung from his appearance, he apologized for his intrusion by relating its cause, in a manner so frank and so graceful that his person, which was uncommonly handsome, received additional charms from his voice and expression. Had he been even old, ugly, and vulgar, the gratitude and kindness of Mrs. Dashwood would have been secured by any act of attention to her child; but the influence of youth, beauty, and elegance, gave an interest to the action which came home to her feelings. She thanked him again and again; and, with a sweetness of address which always attended her, invited him to be seated. But this he declined, as he was dirty and wet. Mrs. Dashwood then begged to know to whom she was obliged. His name, he replied, was Willoughby, and his present home was at Allenham, from whence he hoped she would allow him the honour of calling tomorrow to enquire after Miss Dashwood. The honour was readily granted, and he then departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain. His manly beauty and more than common gracefulness were instantly the theme of general admiration, and the laugh which his gallantry raised against Marianne received particular spirit from his exterior attractions. Marianne herself had seen less of his person than the rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting her up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their entering the house. But she had seen enough of him to join in all the admiration of the others, and with an energy which always adorned her praise. His person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn for the hero of a favourite story; and in his carrying her into the house with so little previous formality, there was a rapidity of thought which particularly recommended the action to her. Every circumstance belonging to him was interesting. His name was good, his residence was in their favourite village, and she soon found out that of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming. Her imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a sprained ankle was disregarded. Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne s accident being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham. "Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is _he_ in the country? That is good news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year." "And what sort of a young man is he?" "As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England." "And is _that_ all you can say for him?" cried Marianne, indignantly. "But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his pursuits, his talents, and genius?" Sir John was rather puzzled. "Upon my soul," said he, "I do not know much about him as to all _that_. But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw. Was she out with him today?" But Marianne could no more satisfy him as to the colour of Mr. Willoughby s pointer, than he could describe to her the shades of his mind. "But who is he?" said Elinor. "Where does he come from? Has he a house at Allenham?" On this point Sir John could give more certain intelligence; and he told them that Mr. Willoughby had no property of his own in the country; that he resided there only while he was visiting the old lady at Allenham Court, to whom he was related, and whose possessions he was to inherit; adding, "Yes, yes, he is very well worth catching I can tell you, Miss Dashwood; he has a pretty little estate of his own in Somersetshire besides; and if I were you, I would not give him up to my younger sister, in spite of all this tumbling down hills. Miss Marianne must not expect to have all the men to herself. Brandon will be jealous, if she does not take care." "I do not believe," said Mrs. Dashwood, with a good humoured smile, "that Mr. Willoughby will be incommoded by the attempts of either of _my_ daughters towards what you call _catching him_. It is not an employment to which they have been brought up. Men are very safe with us, let them be ever so rich. I am glad to find, however, from what you say, that he is a respectable young man, and one whose acquaintance will not be ineligible." "He is as good a sort of fellow, I believe, as ever lived," repeated Sir John. "I remember last Christmas at a little hop at the park, he danced from eight o clock till four, without once sitting down." "Did he indeed?" cried Marianne with sparkling eyes, "and with elegance, with spirit?" "Yes; and he was up again at eight to ride to covert." "That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue." "Aye, aye, I see how it will be," said Sir John, "I see how it will be. You will be setting your cap at him now, and never think of poor Brandon." "That is an expression, Sir John," said Marianne, warmly, "which I particularly dislike. I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit is intended; and setting one s cap at a man, or making a conquest, are the most odious of all. Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and if their construction could ever be deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity." Sir John did not much understand this reproof; but he laughed as heartily as if he did, and then replied, "Ay, you will make conquests enough, I dare say, one way or other. Poor Brandon! he is quite smitten already, and he is very well worth setting your cap at, I can tell you, in spite of all this tumbling about and spraining of ankles." CHAPTER X. Marianne s preserver, as Margaret, with more elegance than precision, styled Willoughby, called at the cottage early the next morning to make his personal enquiries. He was received by Mrs. Dashwood with more than politeness; with a kindness which Sir John s account of him and her own gratitude prompted; and every thing that passed during the visit tended to assure him of the sense, elegance, mutual affection, and domestic comfort of the family to whom accident had now introduced him. Of their personal charms he had not required a second interview to be convinced. Miss Dashwood had a delicate complexion, regular features, and a remarkably pretty figure. Marianne was still handsomer. Her form, though not so correct as her sister s, in having the advantage of height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the common cant of praise, she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less violently outraged than usually happens. Her skin was | vulgar, the gratitude and kindness of Mrs. Dashwood would have been secured by any act of attention to her child; but the influence of youth, beauty, and elegance, gave an interest to the action which came home to her feelings. She thanked him again and again; and, with a sweetness of address which always attended her, invited him to be seated. But this he declined, as he was dirty and wet. Mrs. Dashwood then begged to know to whom she was obliged. His name, he replied, was Willoughby, and his present home was at Allenham, from whence he hoped she would allow him the honour of calling tomorrow to enquire after Miss Dashwood. The honour was readily granted, and he then departed, to make himself still more interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain. His manly beauty and more than common gracefulness were instantly the theme of general admiration, and the laugh which his gallantry raised against Marianne received particular spirit from his exterior attractions. Marianne herself had seen less of his person than the rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting her up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their entering the house. But she had seen enough of him to join in all the admiration of the others, and with an energy which always adorned her praise. His person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn for the hero of a favourite story; and in his carrying her into the house with so little previous formality, there was a rapidity of thought which particularly recommended the action to her. Every circumstance belonging to him was interesting. His name was good, his residence was in their favourite village, and she soon found out that of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming. Her imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a sprained ankle was disregarded. Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne s accident being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham. "Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is _he_ in the country? That is good news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on Thursday."<|quote|>"You know him then,"</|quote|>said Mrs. Dashwood. "Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year." "And what sort of a young man is he?" "As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England." "And is _that_ all you can say for him?" cried Marianne, indignantly. "But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his pursuits, his talents, and genius?" Sir John was rather puzzled. "Upon my soul," said he, "I do not know much about him as to all _that_. But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw. Was she out with him today?" But Marianne could no more satisfy him as to the colour of Mr. Willoughby s pointer, than he could describe to her the shades of his mind. "But who is he?" said Elinor. "Where does he come from? Has he a house at Allenham?" On this point Sir John could give more certain intelligence; and he told them that Mr. Willoughby had no property of his own in the country; that he resided there only while he was visiting the old lady at Allenham Court, to whom he was related, and whose possessions he was to inherit; adding, "Yes, yes, he is very well worth catching I can tell you, Miss Dashwood; he has a pretty little estate of his own in Somersetshire besides; and if I | Sense And Sensibility |
"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!" | Jane | of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake | see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it | shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other." "That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty." This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference | were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other." "That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty." This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend, for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. "I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, | found herself considerably useful to both of them, in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief. "He has made me so happy," said she, one evening, "by telling me, that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible." "I suspected as much," replied Elizabeth. "But how did he account for it?" "It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other." "That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty." This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend, for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. "I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see _you_ as happy! If there _were_ but such another man for you!" "If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time." The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Philips, | be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was that you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen!" Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense. Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty begged very hard for a few balls there every winter. Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner, which he thought himself obliged to accept. Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for while he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on any one else; but she found herself considerably useful to both of them, in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief. "He has made me so happy," said she, one evening, "by telling me, that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible." "I suspected as much," replied Elizabeth. "But how did he account for it?" "It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other." "That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty." This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend, for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. "I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see _you_ as happy! If there _were_ but such another man for you!" "If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time." The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Philips, and _she_ ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton. The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. CHAPTER XIV. One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses were post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door | the door, and coming up to her, claimed the good wishes and affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with great cordiality; and then till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say, of his own happiness, and of Jane's perfections; and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity, to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself. It was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of Miss Bennet's mind gave a glow of such sweet animation to her face, as made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped her turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent, or speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings, though she talked to Bingley of nothing else, for half an hour; and when Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly shewed how really happy he was. Not a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their visitor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he turned to his daughter and said, "Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman." Jane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his goodness. "You are a good girl;" he replied, "and I have great pleasure in thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income." "I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters, would be unpardonable in _me_." "Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet," cried his wife, "what are you talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a-year, and very likely more." Then addressing her daughter, "Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so happy! I am sure I sha'nt get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was that you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen!" Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense. Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty begged very hard for a few balls there every winter. Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner, which he thought himself obliged to accept. Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for while he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on any one else; but she found herself considerably useful to both of them, in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief. "He has made me so happy," said she, one evening, "by telling me, that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible." "I suspected as much," replied Elizabeth. "But how did he account for it?" "It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other." "That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty." This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend, for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. "I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see _you_ as happy! If there _were_ but such another man for you!" "If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time." The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Philips, and _she_ ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton. The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. CHAPTER XIV. One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses were post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open, and their visitor entered. It was lady Catherine de Bourgh. They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizabeth felt. She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth's salutation, than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother, on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made. Mrs. Bennet all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth, "I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady I suppose is your mother." Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was. "And _that_ I suppose is one of your sisters." "Yes, madam," said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to a lady Catherine. "She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all, is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man, who I believe will soon become a part of the family." "You have a very small park here," returned Lady Catherine after a short silence. "It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's." "This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in summer; the windows are full west." Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner; and then added, "May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well." "Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last." Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled. Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating any thing; and then rising up, said to Elizabeth, "Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad | he was gone, he turned to his daughter and said, "Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman." Jane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his goodness. "You are a good girl;" he replied, "and I have great pleasure in thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income." "I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters, would be unpardonable in _me_." "Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet," cried his wife, "what are you talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a-year, and very likely more." Then addressing her daughter, "Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so happy! I am sure I sha'nt get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was that you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen!" Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense. Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty begged very hard for a few balls there every winter. Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner, which he thought himself obliged to accept. Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for while he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on any one else; but she found herself considerably useful to both of them, in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief. "He has made me so happy," said she, one evening, "by telling me, that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible." "I suspected as much," replied Elizabeth. "But how did he account for it?" "It must have been his sister's doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other." "That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard."<|quote|>"Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent, would have prevented his coming down again!"</|quote|>"He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty." This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend, for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. "I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried Jane. "Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see _you_ as happy! If there _were_ but such another man for you!" "If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time." The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Philips, and _she_ ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton. The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. CHAPTER XIV. One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses were post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open, and their visitor entered. It was lady Catherine de Bourgh. They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizabeth felt. She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth's salutation, than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother, on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made. Mrs. Bennet all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost | Pride And Prejudice |
By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined, | No speaker | in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you | for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely | particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear 'em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction." "I am glad to hear it," said Bounderby. "Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I'll state the fact of | you something about it before we go any further." Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. "Don't be too sure of that," said Bounderby. "I don't promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That's meat and drink to us. It's the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear 'em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction." "I am glad to hear it," said Bounderby. "Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I'll state the fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work there is, and it's the lightest work there is, and it's the best-paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't improve the mills themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we're not a-going to do." "Mr. Bounderby, perfectly | the Hotel. There he found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind so disconsolate, that he was already half-disposed to "go in" for something else. "My name, sir," said his visitor, "is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown." Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) to have a pleasure he had long expected. "Coketown, sir," said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, "is not the kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man I'll tell you something about it before we go any further." Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. "Don't be too sure of that," said Bounderby. "I don't promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That's meat and drink to us. It's the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear 'em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction." "I am glad to hear it," said Bounderby. "Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I'll state the fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work there is, and it's the lightest work there is, and it's the best-paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't improve the mills themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we're not a-going to do." "Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right." "Lastly," said Bounderby, "as to our Hands. There's not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, they're not a-going none of 'em ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place." Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question. "Why, you see," replied Mr. Bounderby, "it suits my disposition to have | "Jem, there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don't go in for statistics." Jem, rather taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as ready to "go in" for statistics as for anything else. So, he went in. He coached himself up with a blue-book or two; and his brother put it about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, "If you want to bring in, for any place, a handsome dog who can make you a devilish good speech, look after my brother Jem, for he's your man." After a few dashes in the public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of political sages approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him down to Coketown, to become known there and in the neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his hand; superscribed, "Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown. Specially to introduce James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind." Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James Harthouse's card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went down to the Hotel. There he found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind so disconsolate, that he was already half-disposed to "go in" for something else. "My name, sir," said his visitor, "is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown." Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) to have a pleasure he had long expected. "Coketown, sir," said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, "is not the kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man I'll tell you something about it before we go any further." Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. "Don't be too sure of that," said Bounderby. "I don't promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That's meat and drink to us. It's the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear 'em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction." "I am glad to hear it," said Bounderby. "Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I'll state the fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work there is, and it's the lightest work there is, and it's the best-paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't improve the mills themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we're not a-going to do." "Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right." "Lastly," said Bounderby, "as to our Hands. There's not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, they're not a-going none of 'em ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place." Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question. "Why, you see," replied Mr. Bounderby, "it suits my disposition to have a full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom Gradgrind's letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don't you deceive yourself by supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail." If anything could have exalted Jem's interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him. "So now," said Bounderby, "we may shake hands on equal terms. I say, equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself, and I hope you're pretty well." The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to | her supper. Whom she meant, she did not say; but she could scarcely have meant the sweetbread. CHAPTER II MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE THE Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits more hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having found out everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for anything? Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime height were attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. They liked fine gentlemen; they pretended that they did not, but they did. They became exhausted in imitation of them; and they yaw-yawed in their speech like them; and they served out, with an enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political economy, on which they regaled their disciples. There never before was seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus produced. Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the Gradgrind school, there was one of a good family and a better appearance, with a happy turn of humour which had told immensely with the House of Commons on the occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the Board of Directors) view of a railway accident, in which the most careful officers ever known, employed by the most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by the finest mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on the best line ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded thirty-two, by a casualty without which the excellence of the whole system would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow, and among the scattered articles unowned, a widow's cap. And the honourable member had so tickled the House (which has a delicate sense of humour) by putting the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any serious reference to the Coroner's Inquest, and brought the railway off with Cheers and Laughter. Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere. To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one day, "Jem, there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don't go in for statistics." Jem, rather taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as ready to "go in" for statistics as for anything else. So, he went in. He coached himself up with a blue-book or two; and his brother put it about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, "If you want to bring in, for any place, a handsome dog who can make you a devilish good speech, look after my brother Jem, for he's your man." After a few dashes in the public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of political sages approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him down to Coketown, to become known there and in the neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his hand; superscribed, "Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown. Specially to introduce James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind." Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James Harthouse's card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went down to the Hotel. There he found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind so disconsolate, that he was already half-disposed to "go in" for something else. "My name, sir," said his visitor, "is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown." Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) to have a pleasure he had long expected. "Coketown, sir," said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, "is not the kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man I'll tell you something about it before we go any further." Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. "Don't be too sure of that," said Bounderby. "I don't promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That's meat and drink to us. It's the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear 'em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction." "I am glad to hear it," said Bounderby. "Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I'll state the fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work there is, and it's the lightest work there is, and it's the best-paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't improve the mills themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we're not a-going to do." "Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right." "Lastly," said Bounderby, "as to our Hands. There's not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, they're not a-going none of 'em ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place." Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question. "Why, you see," replied Mr. Bounderby, "it suits my disposition to have a full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom Gradgrind's letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don't you deceive yourself by supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail." If anything could have exalted Jem's interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him. "So now," said Bounderby, "we may shake hands on equal terms. I say, equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself, and I hope you're pretty well." The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received the answer with favour. "Perhaps you know," said he, "or perhaps you don't know, I married Tom Gradgrind's daughter. If you have nothing better to do than to walk up town with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind's daughter." "Mr. Bounderby," said Jem, "you anticipate my dearest wishes." They went out without further discourse; and Mr. Bounderby piloted the new acquaintance who so strongly contrasted with him, to the private red brick dwelling, with the black outside shutters, the green inside blinds, and the black street door up the two white steps. In the drawing-room of which mansion, there presently entered to them the most remarkable girl Mr. James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet so careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of her husband's braggart humility from which she shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow; that it was quite a new sensation to observe her. In face she was no less remarkable than in manner. Her features were handsome; but their natural play was so locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess at their genuine expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self-reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her ease, with her figure in company with them there, and her mind apparently quite alone it was of no use "going in" yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she baffled all penetration. From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to the house itself. There was no mute sign of a woman in the room. No graceful little adornment, no fanciful little device, however trivial, anywhere expressed her influence. Cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich, there the room stared at its present occupants, unsoftened and unrelieved by the least trace of any womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby stood in the midst of his household gods, so those unrelenting divinities occupied their places around Mr. Bounderby, and they were worthy of one another, and well matched. "This, sir," said Bounderby, "is my wife, Mrs. Bounderby: Tom Gradgrind's eldest daughter. Loo, Mr. James Harthouse. Mr. Harthouse has joined your father's muster-roll. If he is not Tom Gradgrind's colleague before long, I believe we shall at least hear of | it became impatient of any serious reference to the Coroner's Inquest, and brought the railway off with Cheers and Laughter. Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than himself, who had tried life as a Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere. To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one day, "Jem, there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don't go in for statistics." Jem, rather taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as ready to "go in" for statistics as for anything else. So, he went in. He coached himself up with a blue-book or two; and his brother put it about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, "If you want to bring in, for any place, a handsome dog who can make you a devilish good speech, look after my brother Jem, for he's your man." After a few dashes in the public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of political sages approved of Jem, and it was resolved to send him down to Coketown, to become known there and in the neighbourhood. Hence the letter Jem had last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his hand; superscribed, "Josiah Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown. Specially to introduce James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind." Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James Harthouse's card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat and went down to the Hotel. There he found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind so disconsolate, that he was already half-disposed to "go in" for something else. "My name, sir," said his visitor, "is Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown." Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) to have a pleasure he had long expected. "Coketown, sir," said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, "is not the kind of place you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man I'll tell you something about it before we go any further." Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. "Don't be too sure of that," said Bounderby. "I don't promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That's meat and drink to us. It's the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear 'em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland."<|quote|>By way of "going in" to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined,</|quote|>"Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction." "I am glad to hear it," said Bounderby. "Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no doubt. You have? Very good. I'll state the fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work there is, and it's the lightest work there is, and it's the best-paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't improve the mills themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we're not a-going to do." "Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right." "Lastly," said Bounderby, "as to our Hands. There's not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has one ultimate object in life. That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, they're not a-going none of 'em ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now you know the place." Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question. "Why, you see," replied Mr. Bounderby, "it suits my disposition to have a full understanding with a man, particularly with a public man, when I make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to my friend Tom Gradgrind's letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don't you deceive yourself by supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag, and bobtail." If anything could have exalted Jem's interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would have been this very circumstance. Or, so he told him. "So now," said Bounderby, "we may shake hands on equal terms. I say, equal terms, because although I know what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my independence in a proper manner, I may come to how do you find yourself, and I hope you're pretty well." The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown. Mr. Bounderby received the answer with favour. "Perhaps you know," said he, "or perhaps you don't know, I married Tom Gradgrind's daughter. If you have nothing better to do than to walk | Hard Times |
cried Mr. Elton, | No speaker | of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning | gratified in being the object of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning of this?--Miss Smith!--I never thought | Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning of this?--Miss Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled | his inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness, replied, "It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning of this?--Miss Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse! who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one | a manner. Command yourself enough to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it." But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a favourable answer. As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness, replied, "It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning of this?--Miss Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse! who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--" (in an accent meant to be insinuating) "--I am sure you have seen and understood me." It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, | scruple--without apology--without much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself _her_ lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would go on, and say it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she replied, "I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to _me_! you forget yourself--you take me for my friend--any message to Miss Smith I shall be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please." "Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly mean!" "--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with quickness, "Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it." But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a favourable answer. As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness, replied, "It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning of this?--Miss Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse! who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--" (in an accent meant to be insinuating) "--I am sure you have seen and understood me." It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed-- "Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It confesses that you have long understood me." "No, sir," cried Emma, "it confesses no such thing. So far from having long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you have never thought seriously of her?" "Never, madam," cried he, affronted in his turn: "never, I assure you. _I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not | his temper and happiness when this visit of hardship were over. The carriage came: and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr. Weston; but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. "He was afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind. He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together as they could;" and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very slow and wait for the other carriage. Isabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally; so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them, and that they were to have a tete-a-tete drive. It would not have been the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure, previous to the suspicions of this very day; she could have talked to him of Harriet, and the three-quarters of a mile would have seemed but one. But now, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had been drinking too much of Mr. Weston's good wine, and felt sure that he would want to be talking nonsense. To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cut up--her hand seized--her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known, hoping--fearing--adoring--ready to die if she refused him; but flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short, very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It really was so. Without scruple--without apology--without much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself _her_ lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would go on, and say it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she replied, "I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to _me_! you forget yourself--you take me for my friend--any message to Miss Smith I shall be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please." "Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly mean!" "--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with quickness, "Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it." But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a favourable answer. As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness, replied, "It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning of this?--Miss Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse! who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--" (in an accent meant to be insinuating) "--I am sure you have seen and understood me." It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed-- "Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It confesses that you have long understood me." "No, sir," cried Emma, "it confesses no such thing. So far from having long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you have never thought seriously of her?" "Never, madam," cried he, affronted in his turn: "never, I assure you. _I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to--Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!--No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received--" "Encouragement!--I give you encouragement!--Sir, you have been entirely mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware, probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present." He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer, for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace. If there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves, all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another syllable passed.--Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield. There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage Lane--turning a corner which he could never bear to think of--and in strange hands--a mere common coachman--no James; and there it seemed as if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well: for Mr. John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her father, as to seem--if not quite ready to join him in a basin of gruel--perfectly | Smith I shall be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please." "Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly mean!" "--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with quickness, "Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it." But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a favourable answer. As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness, replied, "It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object of such professions." "Good Heaven!"<|quote|>cried Mr. Elton,</|quote|>"what can be the meaning of this?--Miss Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse! who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--" (in an accent meant to be insinuating) "--I am sure you have seen and understood me." It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed-- "Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It confesses that you have long understood me." "No, sir," cried Emma, "it confesses no such thing. So far from having long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you have never thought seriously of her?" "Never, madam," cried he, affronted in his turn: "never, I assure you. _I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to--Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!--No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received--" "Encouragement!--I give you encouragement!--Sir, you have been entirely mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake ends where | Emma |
"Fine." | Jake Barnes | "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I | I've been back," Brett said. "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I say," she said, "is Robert | "Oh, shut it and go and get your hair cut." Mike went out. Brett and I sat on at the bar. "Have another?" "Might." "I needed that," Brett said. We walked up the Rue Delambre. "I haven't seen you since I've been back," Brett said. "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I say," she said, "is Robert Cohn going on this trip?" "Yes. Why?" "Don't you think it will be a bit rough on him?" "Why should it?" "Who did you think I went down to San Sebastian with?" "Congratulations," I said. We walked along. "What did | brothel!" "We left our bags here at the Dingo when we got in, and they asked us at this hotel if we wanted a room for the afternoon only. Seemed frightfully pleased we were going to stay all night." "_I_ believe it's a brothel," Mike said. "And _I_ should know." "Oh, shut it and go and get your hair cut." Mike went out. Brett and I sat on at the bar. "Have another?" "Might." "I needed that," Brett said. We walked up the Rue Delambre. "I haven't seen you since I've been back," Brett said. "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I say," she said, "is Robert Cohn going on this trip?" "Yes. Why?" "Don't you think it will be a bit rough on him?" "Why should it?" "Who did you think I went down to San Sebastian with?" "Congratulations," I said. We walked along. "What did you say that for?" "I don't know. What would you like me to say?" We walked along and turned a corner. "He behaved rather well, too. He gets a little dull." "Does he?" "I rather thought it would be good for him." "You might take up social service." "Don't be | "Get two or three rods with reels, and lines, and some flies." "I won't fish," Brett put in. "Get two rods, then, and Bill won't have to buy one." "Right," said Mike. "I'll send a wire to the keeper." "Won't it be splendid," Brett said. "Spain! We _will_ have fun." "The 25th. When is that?" "Saturday." "We _will_ have to get ready." "I say," said Mike, "I'm going to the barber's." "I must bathe," said Brett. "Walk up to the hotel with me, Jake. Be a good chap." "We _have_ got the loveliest hotel," Mike said. "I think it's a brothel!" "We left our bags here at the Dingo when we got in, and they asked us at this hotel if we wanted a room for the afternoon only. Seemed frightfully pleased we were going to stay all night." "_I_ believe it's a brothel," Mike said. "And _I_ should know." "Oh, shut it and go and get your hair cut." Mike went out. Brett and I sat on at the bar. "Have another?" "Might." "I needed that," Brett said. We walked up the Rue Delambre. "I haven't seen you since I've been back," Brett said. "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I say," she said, "is Robert Cohn going on this trip?" "Yes. Why?" "Don't you think it will be a bit rough on him?" "Why should it?" "Who did you think I went down to San Sebastian with?" "Congratulations," I said. We walked along. "What did you say that for?" "I don't know. What would you like me to say?" We walked along and turned a corner. "He behaved rather well, too. He gets a little dull." "Does he?" "I rather thought it would be good for him." "You might take up social service." "Don't be nasty." "I won't." "Didn't you really know?" "No," I said. "I guess I didn't think about it." "Do you think it will be too rough on him?" "That's up to him," I said. "Tell him you're coming. He can always not come." "I'll write him and give him a chance to pull out of it." I did not see Brett again until the night of the 24th of June. "Did you hear from Cohn?" "Rather. He's keen about it." "My God!" "I thought it was rather odd myself." "Says he can't wait to see me." "Does he think you're coming | said Mike, "when do you go down to Spain? Would you mind if we came down with you?" "It would be grand." "You wouldn't mind, really? I've been at Pamplona, you know. Brett's mad to go. You're sure we wouldn't just be a bloody nuisance?" "Don't talk like a fool." "I'm a little tight, you know. I wouldn't ask you like this if I weren't. You're sure you don't mind?" "Oh, shut up, Michael," Brett said. "How can the man say he'd mind now? I'll ask him later." "But you don't mind, do you?" "Don't ask that again unless you want to make me sore. Bill and I go down on the morning of the 25th." "By the way, where is Bill?" Brett asked. "He's out at Chantilly dining with some people." "He's a good chap." "Splendid chap," said Mike. "He is, you know." "You don't remember him," Brett said. "I do. Remember him perfectly. Look, Jake, we'll come down the night of the 25th. Brett can't get up in the morning." "Indeed not!" "If our money comes and you're sure you don't mind." "It will come, all right. I'll see to that." "Tell me what tackle to send for." "Get two or three rods with reels, and lines, and some flies." "I won't fish," Brett put in. "Get two rods, then, and Bill won't have to buy one." "Right," said Mike. "I'll send a wire to the keeper." "Won't it be splendid," Brett said. "Spain! We _will_ have fun." "The 25th. When is that?" "Saturday." "We _will_ have to get ready." "I say," said Mike, "I'm going to the barber's." "I must bathe," said Brett. "Walk up to the hotel with me, Jake. Be a good chap." "We _have_ got the loveliest hotel," Mike said. "I think it's a brothel!" "We left our bags here at the Dingo when we got in, and they asked us at this hotel if we wanted a room for the afternoon only. Seemed frightfully pleased we were going to stay all night." "_I_ believe it's a brothel," Mike said. "And _I_ should know." "Oh, shut it and go and get your hair cut." Mike went out. Brett and I sat on at the bar. "Have another?" "Might." "I needed that," Brett said. We walked up the Rue Delambre. "I haven't seen you since I've been back," Brett said. "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I say," she said, "is Robert Cohn going on this trip?" "Yes. Why?" "Don't you think it will be a bit rough on him?" "Why should it?" "Who did you think I went down to San Sebastian with?" "Congratulations," I said. We walked along. "What did you say that for?" "I don't know. What would you like me to say?" We walked along and turned a corner. "He behaved rather well, too. He gets a little dull." "Does he?" "I rather thought it would be good for him." "You might take up social service." "Don't be nasty." "I won't." "Didn't you really know?" "No," I said. "I guess I didn't think about it." "Do you think it will be too rough on him?" "That's up to him," I said. "Tell him you're coming. He can always not come." "I'll write him and give him a chance to pull out of it." I did not see Brett again until the night of the 24th of June. "Did you hear from Cohn?" "Rather. He's keen about it." "My God!" "I thought it was rather odd myself." "Says he can't wait to see me." "Does he think you're coming alone?" "No. I told him we were all coming down together. Michael and all." "He's wonderful." "Isn't he?" They expected their money the next day. We arranged to meet at Pamplona. They would go directly to San Sebastian and take the train from there. We would all meet at the Montoya in Pamplona. If they did not turn up on Monday at the latest we would go on ahead up to Burguete in the mountains, to start fishing. There was a bus to Burguete. I wrote out an itinerary so they could follow us. Bill and I took the morning train from the Gare d'Orsay. It was a lovely day, not too hot, and the country was beautiful from the start. We went back into the diner and had breakfast. Leaving the dining-car I asked the conductor for tickets for the first service. "Nothing until the fifth." "What's this?" There were never more than two servings of lunch on that train, and always plenty of places for both of them. "They're all reserved," the dining-car conductor said. "There will be a fifth service at three-thirty." "This is serious," I said to Bill. "Give him ten francs." "Here," I said. "We | and somebody." "He's very good, Ledoux," Mike said. "I'd like to see it, rather" "--he was making an effort to pull himself together--" "but I can't go. I had a date with this thing here. I say, Brett, do get a new hat." Brett pulled the felt hat down far over one eye and smiled out from under it. "You two run along to the fight. I'll have to be taking Mr. Campbell home directly." "I'm not tight," Mike said. "Perhaps just a little. I say, Brett, you are a lovely piece." "Go on to the fight," Brett said. "Mr. Campbell's getting difficult. What are these outbursts of affection, Michael?" "I say, you are a lovely piece." We said good night. "I'm sorry I can't go," Mike said. Brett laughed. I looked back from the door. Mike had one hand on the bar and was leaning toward Brett, talking. Brett was looking at him quite coolly, but the corners of her eyes were smiling. Outside on the pavement I said: "Do you want to go to the fight?" "Sure," said Bill. "If we don't have to walk." "Mike was pretty excited about his girl friend," I said in the taxi. "Well," said Bill. "You can't blame him such a hell of a lot." CHAPTER 9 The Ledoux-Kid Francis fight was the night of the 20th of June. It was a good fight. The morning after the fight I had a letter from Robert Cohn, written from Hendaye. He was having a very quiet time, he said, bathing, playing some golf and much bridge. Hendaye had a splendid beach, but he was anxious to start on the fishing-trip. When would I be down? If I would buy him a double-tapered line he would pay me when I came down. That same morning I wrote Cohn from the office that Bill and I would leave Paris on the 25th unless I wired him otherwise, and would meet him at Bayonne, where we could get a bus over the mountains to Pamplona. The same evening about seven o'clock I stopped in at the Select to see Michael and Brett. They were not there, and I went over to the Dingo. They were inside sitting at the bar. "Hello, darling." Brett put out her hand. "Hello, Jake," Mike said. "I understand I was tight last night." "Weren't you, though," Brett said. "Disgraceful business." "Look," said Mike, "when do you go down to Spain? Would you mind if we came down with you?" "It would be grand." "You wouldn't mind, really? I've been at Pamplona, you know. Brett's mad to go. You're sure we wouldn't just be a bloody nuisance?" "Don't talk like a fool." "I'm a little tight, you know. I wouldn't ask you like this if I weren't. You're sure you don't mind?" "Oh, shut up, Michael," Brett said. "How can the man say he'd mind now? I'll ask him later." "But you don't mind, do you?" "Don't ask that again unless you want to make me sore. Bill and I go down on the morning of the 25th." "By the way, where is Bill?" Brett asked. "He's out at Chantilly dining with some people." "He's a good chap." "Splendid chap," said Mike. "He is, you know." "You don't remember him," Brett said. "I do. Remember him perfectly. Look, Jake, we'll come down the night of the 25th. Brett can't get up in the morning." "Indeed not!" "If our money comes and you're sure you don't mind." "It will come, all right. I'll see to that." "Tell me what tackle to send for." "Get two or three rods with reels, and lines, and some flies." "I won't fish," Brett put in. "Get two rods, then, and Bill won't have to buy one." "Right," said Mike. "I'll send a wire to the keeper." "Won't it be splendid," Brett said. "Spain! We _will_ have fun." "The 25th. When is that?" "Saturday." "We _will_ have to get ready." "I say," said Mike, "I'm going to the barber's." "I must bathe," said Brett. "Walk up to the hotel with me, Jake. Be a good chap." "We _have_ got the loveliest hotel," Mike said. "I think it's a brothel!" "We left our bags here at the Dingo when we got in, and they asked us at this hotel if we wanted a room for the afternoon only. Seemed frightfully pleased we were going to stay all night." "_I_ believe it's a brothel," Mike said. "And _I_ should know." "Oh, shut it and go and get your hair cut." Mike went out. Brett and I sat on at the bar. "Have another?" "Might." "I needed that," Brett said. We walked up the Rue Delambre. "I haven't seen you since I've been back," Brett said. "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I say," she said, "is Robert Cohn going on this trip?" "Yes. Why?" "Don't you think it will be a bit rough on him?" "Why should it?" "Who did you think I went down to San Sebastian with?" "Congratulations," I said. We walked along. "What did you say that for?" "I don't know. What would you like me to say?" We walked along and turned a corner. "He behaved rather well, too. He gets a little dull." "Does he?" "I rather thought it would be good for him." "You might take up social service." "Don't be nasty." "I won't." "Didn't you really know?" "No," I said. "I guess I didn't think about it." "Do you think it will be too rough on him?" "That's up to him," I said. "Tell him you're coming. He can always not come." "I'll write him and give him a chance to pull out of it." I did not see Brett again until the night of the 24th of June. "Did you hear from Cohn?" "Rather. He's keen about it." "My God!" "I thought it was rather odd myself." "Says he can't wait to see me." "Does he think you're coming alone?" "No. I told him we were all coming down together. Michael and all." "He's wonderful." "Isn't he?" They expected their money the next day. We arranged to meet at Pamplona. They would go directly to San Sebastian and take the train from there. We would all meet at the Montoya in Pamplona. If they did not turn up on Monday at the latest we would go on ahead up to Burguete in the mountains, to start fishing. There was a bus to Burguete. I wrote out an itinerary so they could follow us. Bill and I took the morning train from the Gare d'Orsay. It was a lovely day, not too hot, and the country was beautiful from the start. We went back into the diner and had breakfast. Leaving the dining-car I asked the conductor for tickets for the first service. "Nothing until the fifth." "What's this?" There were never more than two servings of lunch on that train, and always plenty of places for both of them. "They're all reserved," the dining-car conductor said. "There will be a fifth service at three-thirty." "This is serious," I said to Bill. "Give him ten francs." "Here," I said. "We want to eat in the first service." The conductor put the ten francs in his pocket. "Thank you," he said. "I would advise you gentlemen to get some sandwiches. All the places for the first four services were reserved at the office of the company." "You'll go a long way, brother," Bill said to him in English. "I suppose if I'd given you five francs you would have advised us to jump off the train." "_Comment?_" "Go to hell!" said Bill. "Get the sandwiches made and a bottle of wine. You tell him, Jake." "And send it up to the next car." I described where we were. In our compartment were a man and his wife and their young son. "I suppose you're Americans, aren't you?" the man asked. "Having a good trip?" "Wonderful," said Bill. "That's what you want to do. Travel while you're young. Mother and I always wanted to get over, but we had to wait a while." "You could have come over ten years ago, if you'd wanted to," the wife said. "What you always said was:" 'See America first!' "I will say we've seen a good deal, take it one way and another." "Say, there's plenty of Americans on this train," the husband said. "They've got seven cars of them from Dayton, Ohio. They've been on a pilgrimage to Rome, and now they're going down to Biarritz and Lourdes." "So, that's what they are. Pilgrims. Goddam Puritans," Bill said. "What part of the States you boys from?" "Kansas City," I said. "He's from Chicago." "You both going to Biarritz?" "No. We're going fishing in Spain." "Well, I never cared for it, myself. There's plenty that do out where I come from, though. We got some of the best fishing in the State of Montana. I've been out with the boys, but I never cared for it any." "Mighty little fishing you did on them trips," his wife said. He winked at us. "You know how the ladies are. If there's a jug goes along, or a case of beer, they think it's hell and damnation." "That's the way men are," his wife said to us. She smoothed her comfortable lap. "I voted against prohibition to please him, and because I like a little beer in the house, and then he talks that way. It's a wonder they ever find any one to marry them." "Say," | the 25th unless I wired him otherwise, and would meet him at Bayonne, where we could get a bus over the mountains to Pamplona. The same evening about seven o'clock I stopped in at the Select to see Michael and Brett. They were not there, and I went over to the Dingo. They were inside sitting at the bar. "Hello, darling." Brett put out her hand. "Hello, Jake," Mike said. "I understand I was tight last night." "Weren't you, though," Brett said. "Disgraceful business." "Look," said Mike, "when do you go down to Spain? Would you mind if we came down with you?" "It would be grand." "You wouldn't mind, really? I've been at Pamplona, you know. Brett's mad to go. You're sure we wouldn't just be a bloody nuisance?" "Don't talk like a fool." "I'm a little tight, you know. I wouldn't ask you like this if I weren't. You're sure you don't mind?" "Oh, shut up, Michael," Brett said. "How can the man say he'd mind now? I'll ask him later." "But you don't mind, do you?" "Don't ask that again unless you want to make me sore. Bill and I go down on the morning of the 25th." "By the way, where is Bill?" Brett asked. "He's out at Chantilly dining with some people." "He's a good chap." "Splendid chap," said Mike. "He is, you know." "You don't remember him," Brett said. "I do. Remember him perfectly. Look, Jake, we'll come down the night of the 25th. Brett can't get up in the morning." "Indeed not!" "If our money comes and you're sure you don't mind." "It will come, all right. I'll see to that." "Tell me what tackle to send for." "Get two or three rods with reels, and lines, and some flies." "I won't fish," Brett put in. "Get two rods, then, and Bill won't have to buy one." "Right," said Mike. "I'll send a wire to the keeper." "Won't it be splendid," Brett said. "Spain! We _will_ have fun." "The 25th. When is that?" "Saturday." "We _will_ have to get ready." "I say," said Mike, "I'm going to the barber's." "I must bathe," said Brett. "Walk up to the hotel with me, Jake. Be a good chap." "We _have_ got the loveliest hotel," Mike said. "I think it's a brothel!" "We left our bags here at the Dingo when we got in, and they asked us at this hotel if we wanted a room for the afternoon only. Seemed frightfully pleased we were going to stay all night." "_I_ believe it's a brothel," Mike said. "And _I_ should know." "Oh, shut it and go and get your hair cut." Mike went out. Brett and I sat on at the bar. "Have another?" "Might." "I needed that," Brett said. We walked up the Rue Delambre. "I haven't seen you since I've been back," Brett said. "No." "How _are_ you, Jake?"<|quote|>"Fine."</|quote|>Brett looked at me. "I say," she said, "is Robert Cohn going on this trip?" "Yes. Why?" "Don't you think it will be a bit rough on him?" "Why should it?" "Who did you think I went down to San Sebastian with?" "Congratulations," I said. We walked along. "What did you say that for?" "I don't know. What would you like me to say?" We walked along and turned a corner. "He behaved rather well, too. He gets a little dull." "Does he?" "I rather thought it would be good for him." "You might take up social service." "Don't be nasty." "I won't." "Didn't you really know?" "No," I said. "I guess I didn't think about it." "Do you think it will be too rough on him?" "That's up to him," I said. "Tell him you're coming. He can always not come." "I'll write him and give him a chance to pull out of it." I did not see Brett again until the night of the 24th of June. "Did you hear from Cohn?" "Rather. He's keen about it." "My God!" "I thought it was rather odd myself." "Says he can't wait to see me." "Does he think you're coming alone?" "No. I told him we were all coming down together. Michael and all." "He's wonderful." "Isn't he?" They expected their money the next day. We arranged to meet at Pamplona. They would go directly to San Sebastian and take the train from there. We would all meet at the Montoya in Pamplona. If they did not turn up on Monday at the latest we would go on ahead up to Burguete in the mountains, to start fishing. There was a bus to Burguete. I wrote out an itinerary so they could follow us. Bill and I took the morning train from the Gare d'Orsay. It was a | The Sun Also Rises |
"Yes, but I don't see" | Mr. Hastings | the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do | shook as I was straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I | bedroom, under our very noses?" I cried. Poirot nodded. "Yes, my friend. That is where I discovered my last link,' and I owe that very fortunate discovery to you." "To me?" "Yes. Do you remember telling me that my hand shook as I was straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I remembered that earlier in the morning, when we had been there together, I had straightened all the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened, there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the meantime, | vase on the mantle-piece." I uttered an exclamation. "No one would think of looking there," Poirot continued. "And he will be able, at his leisure, to come back and destroy this solitary piece of evidence against him." "Then, all the time, it was in the spill vase in Mrs. Inglethorp's bedroom, under our very noses?" I cried. Poirot nodded. "Yes, my friend. That is where I discovered my last link,' and I owe that very fortunate discovery to you." "To me?" "Yes. Do you remember telling me that my hand shook as I was straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I remembered that earlier in the morning, when we had been there together, I had straightened all the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened, there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the meantime, someone else had touched them." "Dear me," I murmured, "so that is the explanation of your extraordinary behaviour. You rushed down to Styles, and found it still there?" "Yes, and it was a race for time." "But I still can't understand why Inglethorp was such a fool as to leave | he hears the sounds below of Mr. Wells and John leaving the boudoir. He must act quickly. Where can he hide this terrible slip of paper? The contents of the waste-paper-basket are kept and in any case, are sure to be examined. There are no means of destroying it; and he dare not keep it. He looks round, and he sees what do you think, _mon ami?_" I shook my head. "In a moment, he has torn the letter into long thin strips, and rolling them up into spills he thrusts them hurriedly in amongst the other spills in the vase on the mantle-piece." I uttered an exclamation. "No one would think of looking there," Poirot continued. "And he will be able, at his leisure, to come back and destroy this solitary piece of evidence against him." "Then, all the time, it was in the spill vase in Mrs. Inglethorp's bedroom, under our very noses?" I cried. Poirot nodded. "Yes, my friend. That is where I discovered my last link,' and I owe that very fortunate discovery to you." "To me?" "Yes. Do you remember telling me that my hand shook as I was straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I remembered that earlier in the morning, when we had been there together, I had straightened all the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened, there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the meantime, someone else had touched them." "Dear me," I murmured, "so that is the explanation of your extraordinary behaviour. You rushed down to Styles, and found it still there?" "Yes, and it was a race for time." "But I still can't understand why Inglethorp was such a fool as to leave it there when he had plenty of opportunity to destroy it." "Ah, but he had no opportunity. _I_ saw to that." "You?" "Yes. Do you remember reproving me for taking the household into my confidence on the subject?" "Yes." "Well, my friend, I saw there was just one chance. I was not sure then if Inglethorp was the criminal or not, but if he was I reasoned that he would not have the paper on him, but would have hidden it somewhere, and by enlisting the sympathy of the household I could effectually prevent his destroying it. He was already | from his point of view. I have discovered that there were only five short minutes in which he could have taken it the five minutes immediately before our own arrival on the scene, for before that time Annie was brushing the stairs, and would have seen anyone who passed going to the right wing. Figure to yourself the scene! He enters the room, unlocking the door by means of one of the other doorkeys they were all much alike. He hurries to the despatch-case it is locked, and the keys are nowhere to be seen. That is a terrible blow to him, for it means that his presence in the room cannot be concealed as he had hoped. But he sees clearly that everything must be risked for the sake of that damning piece of evidence. Quickly, he forces the lock with a penknife, and turns over the papers until he finds what he is looking for." "But now a fresh dilemma arises: he dare not keep that piece of paper on him. He may be seen leaving the room he may be searched. If the paper is found on him, it is certain doom. Probably, at this minute, too, he hears the sounds below of Mr. Wells and John leaving the boudoir. He must act quickly. Where can he hide this terrible slip of paper? The contents of the waste-paper-basket are kept and in any case, are sure to be examined. There are no means of destroying it; and he dare not keep it. He looks round, and he sees what do you think, _mon ami?_" I shook my head. "In a moment, he has torn the letter into long thin strips, and rolling them up into spills he thrusts them hurriedly in amongst the other spills in the vase on the mantle-piece." I uttered an exclamation. "No one would think of looking there," Poirot continued. "And he will be able, at his leisure, to come back and destroy this solitary piece of evidence against him." "Then, all the time, it was in the spill vase in Mrs. Inglethorp's bedroom, under our very noses?" I cried. Poirot nodded. "Yes, my friend. That is where I discovered my last link,' and I owe that very fortunate discovery to you." "To me?" "Yes. Do you remember telling me that my hand shook as I was straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I remembered that earlier in the morning, when we had been there together, I had straightened all the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened, there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the meantime, someone else had touched them." "Dear me," I murmured, "so that is the explanation of your extraordinary behaviour. You rushed down to Styles, and found it still there?" "Yes, and it was a race for time." "But I still can't understand why Inglethorp was such a fool as to leave it there when he had plenty of opportunity to destroy it." "Ah, but he had no opportunity. _I_ saw to that." "You?" "Yes. Do you remember reproving me for taking the household into my confidence on the subject?" "Yes." "Well, my friend, I saw there was just one chance. I was not sure then if Inglethorp was the criminal or not, but if he was I reasoned that he would not have the paper on him, but would have hidden it somewhere, and by enlisting the sympathy of the household I could effectually prevent his destroying it. He was already under suspicion, and by making the matter public I secured the services of about ten amateur detectives, who would be watching him unceasingly, and being himself aware of their watchfulness he would not dare seek further to destroy the document. He was therefore forced to depart from the house, leaving it in the spill vase." "But surely Miss Howard had ample opportunities of aiding him." "Yes, but Miss Howard did not know of the paper's existence. In accordance with their prearranged plan, she never spoke to Alfred Inglethorp. They were supposed to be deadly enemies, and until John Cavendish was safely convicted they neither of them dared risk a meeting. Of course I had a watch kept on Mr. Inglethorp, hoping that sooner or later he would lead me to the hiding-place. But he was too clever to take any chances. The paper was safe where it was; since no one had thought of looking there in the first week, it was not likely they would do so afterwards. But for your lucky remark, we might never have been able to bring him to justice." "I understand that now; but when did you first begin to suspect Miss Howard?" "When | note still copying his hand-writing which takes him to a remote spot where it is exceedingly unlikely that anyone will see him." "So far, all goes well. Miss Howard goes back to Middlingham. Alfred Inglethorp returns to Styles. There is nothing that can compromise him in any way, since it is Miss Howard who has the strychnine, which, after all, is only wanted as a blind to throw suspicion on John Cavendish." "But now a hitch occurs. Mrs. Inglethorp does not take her medicine that night. The broken bell, Cynthia's absence arranged by Inglethorp through his wife all these are wasted. And then he makes his slip." "Mrs. Inglethorp is out, and he sits down to write to his accomplice, who, he fears, may be in a panic at the non-success of their plan. It is probable that Mrs. Inglethorp returned earlier than he expected. Caught in the act, and somewhat flurried he hastily shuts and locks his desk. He fears that if he remains in the room he may have to open it again, and that Mrs. Inglethorp might catch sight of the letter before he could snatch it up. So he goes out and walks in the woods, little dreaming that Mrs. Inglethorp will open his desk, and discover the incriminating document." "But this, as we know, is what happened. Mrs. Inglethorp reads it, and becomes aware of the perfidy of her husband and Evelyn Howard, though, unfortunately, the sentence about the bromides conveys no warning to her mind. She knows that she is in danger but is ignorant of where the danger lies. She decides to say nothing to her husband, but sits down and writes to her solicitor, asking him to come on the morrow, and she also determines to destroy immediately the will which she has just made. She keeps the fatal letter." "It was to discover that letter, then, that her husband forced the lock of the despatch-case?" "Yes, and from the enormous risk he ran we can see how fully he realized its importance. That letter excepted, there was absolutely nothing to connect him with the crime." "There's only one thing I can't make out, why didn't he destroy it at once when he got hold of it?" "Because he did not dare take the biggest risk of all that of keeping it on his own person." "I don't understand." "Look at it from his point of view. I have discovered that there were only five short minutes in which he could have taken it the five minutes immediately before our own arrival on the scene, for before that time Annie was brushing the stairs, and would have seen anyone who passed going to the right wing. Figure to yourself the scene! He enters the room, unlocking the door by means of one of the other doorkeys they were all much alike. He hurries to the despatch-case it is locked, and the keys are nowhere to be seen. That is a terrible blow to him, for it means that his presence in the room cannot be concealed as he had hoped. But he sees clearly that everything must be risked for the sake of that damning piece of evidence. Quickly, he forces the lock with a penknife, and turns over the papers until he finds what he is looking for." "But now a fresh dilemma arises: he dare not keep that piece of paper on him. He may be seen leaving the room he may be searched. If the paper is found on him, it is certain doom. Probably, at this minute, too, he hears the sounds below of Mr. Wells and John leaving the boudoir. He must act quickly. Where can he hide this terrible slip of paper? The contents of the waste-paper-basket are kept and in any case, are sure to be examined. There are no means of destroying it; and he dare not keep it. He looks round, and he sees what do you think, _mon ami?_" I shook my head. "In a moment, he has torn the letter into long thin strips, and rolling them up into spills he thrusts them hurriedly in amongst the other spills in the vase on the mantle-piece." I uttered an exclamation. "No one would think of looking there," Poirot continued. "And he will be able, at his leisure, to come back and destroy this solitary piece of evidence against him." "Then, all the time, it was in the spill vase in Mrs. Inglethorp's bedroom, under our very noses?" I cried. Poirot nodded. "Yes, my friend. That is where I discovered my last link,' and I owe that very fortunate discovery to you." "To me?" "Yes. Do you remember telling me that my hand shook as I was straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I remembered that earlier in the morning, when we had been there together, I had straightened all the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened, there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the meantime, someone else had touched them." "Dear me," I murmured, "so that is the explanation of your extraordinary behaviour. You rushed down to Styles, and found it still there?" "Yes, and it was a race for time." "But I still can't understand why Inglethorp was such a fool as to leave it there when he had plenty of opportunity to destroy it." "Ah, but he had no opportunity. _I_ saw to that." "You?" "Yes. Do you remember reproving me for taking the household into my confidence on the subject?" "Yes." "Well, my friend, I saw there was just one chance. I was not sure then if Inglethorp was the criminal or not, but if he was I reasoned that he would not have the paper on him, but would have hidden it somewhere, and by enlisting the sympathy of the household I could effectually prevent his destroying it. He was already under suspicion, and by making the matter public I secured the services of about ten amateur detectives, who would be watching him unceasingly, and being himself aware of their watchfulness he would not dare seek further to destroy the document. He was therefore forced to depart from the house, leaving it in the spill vase." "But surely Miss Howard had ample opportunities of aiding him." "Yes, but Miss Howard did not know of the paper's existence. In accordance with their prearranged plan, she never spoke to Alfred Inglethorp. They were supposed to be deadly enemies, and until John Cavendish was safely convicted they neither of them dared risk a meeting. Of course I had a watch kept on Mr. Inglethorp, hoping that sooner or later he would lead me to the hiding-place. But he was too clever to take any chances. The paper was safe where it was; since no one had thought of looking there in the first week, it was not likely they would do so afterwards. But for your lucky remark, we might never have been able to bring him to justice." "I understand that now; but when did you first begin to suspect Miss Howard?" "When I discovered that she had told a lie at the inquest about the letter she had received from Mrs. Inglethorp." "Why, what was there to lie about?" "You saw that letter? Do you recall its general appearance?" "Yes more or less." "You will recollect, then, that Mrs. Inglethorp wrote a very distinctive hand, and left large clear spaces between her words. But if you look at the date at the top of the letter you will notice that July 17th' is quite different in this respect. Do you see what I mean?" "No," I confessed, "I don't." "You do not see that that letter was not written on the 17th, but on the 7th the day after Miss Howard's departure? The 1' was written in before the 7' to turn it into the 17th'." "But why?" "That is exactly what I asked myself. Why does Miss Howard suppress the letter written on the 17th, and produce this faked one instead? Because she did not wish to show the letter of the 17th. Why, again? And at once a suspicion dawned in my mind. You will remember my saying that it was wise to beware of people who were not telling you the truth." "And yet," I cried indignantly, "after that, you gave me two reasons why Miss Howard could not have committed the crime!" "And very good reasons too," replied Poirot. "For a long time they were a stumbling-block to me until I remembered a very significant fact: that she and Alfred Inglethorp were cousins. She could not have committed the crime single-handed, but the reasons against that did not debar her from being an accomplice. And, then, there was that rather over-vehement hatred of hers! It concealed a very opposite emotion. There was, undoubtedly, a tie of passion between them long before he came to Styles. They had already arranged their infamous plot that he should marry this rich, but rather foolish old lady, induce her to make a will leaving her money to him, and then gain their ends by a very cleverly conceived crime. If all had gone as they planned, they would probably have left England, and lived together on their poor victim's money." "They are a very astute and unscrupulous pair. While suspicion was to be directed against him, she would be making quiet preparations for a very different _d nouement_. She arrives from Middlingham | keeps the fatal letter." "It was to discover that letter, then, that her husband forced the lock of the despatch-case?" "Yes, and from the enormous risk he ran we can see how fully he realized its importance. That letter excepted, there was absolutely nothing to connect him with the crime." "There's only one thing I can't make out, why didn't he destroy it at once when he got hold of it?" "Because he did not dare take the biggest risk of all that of keeping it on his own person." "I don't understand." "Look at it from his point of view. I have discovered that there were only five short minutes in which he could have taken it the five minutes immediately before our own arrival on the scene, for before that time Annie was brushing the stairs, and would have seen anyone who passed going to the right wing. Figure to yourself the scene! He enters the room, unlocking the door by means of one of the other doorkeys they were all much alike. He hurries to the despatch-case it is locked, and the keys are nowhere to be seen. That is a terrible blow to him, for it means that his presence in the room cannot be concealed as he had hoped. But he sees clearly that everything must be risked for the sake of that damning piece of evidence. Quickly, he forces the lock with a penknife, and turns over the papers until he finds what he is looking for." "But now a fresh dilemma arises: he dare not keep that piece of paper on him. He may be seen leaving the room he may be searched. If the paper is found on him, it is certain doom. Probably, at this minute, too, he hears the sounds below of Mr. Wells and John leaving the boudoir. He must act quickly. Where can he hide this terrible slip of paper? The contents of the waste-paper-basket are kept and in any case, are sure to be examined. There are no means of destroying it; and he dare not keep it. He looks round, and he sees what do you think, _mon ami?_" I shook my head. "In a moment, he has torn the letter into long thin strips, and rolling them up into spills he thrusts them hurriedly in amongst the other spills in the vase on the mantle-piece." I uttered an exclamation. "No one would think of looking there," Poirot continued. "And he will be able, at his leisure, to come back and destroy this solitary piece of evidence against him." "Then, all the time, it was in the spill vase in Mrs. Inglethorp's bedroom, under our very noses?" I cried. Poirot nodded. "Yes, my friend. That is where I discovered my last link,' and I owe that very fortunate discovery to you." "To me?" "Yes. Do you remember telling me that my hand shook as I was straightening the ornaments on the mantelpiece?"<|quote|>"Yes, but I don't see"</|quote|>"No, but I saw. Do you know, my friend, I remembered that earlier in the morning, when we had been there together, I had straightened all the objects on the mantelpiece. And, if they were already straightened, there would be no need to straighten them again, unless, in the meantime, someone else had touched them." "Dear me," I murmured, "so that is the explanation of your extraordinary behaviour. You rushed down to Styles, and found it still there?" "Yes, and it was a race for time." "But I still can't understand why Inglethorp was such a fool as to leave it there when he had plenty of opportunity to destroy it." "Ah, but he had no opportunity. _I_ saw to that." "You?" "Yes. Do you remember reproving me for taking the household into my confidence on the subject?" "Yes." "Well, my friend, I saw there was just one chance. I was not sure then if Inglethorp was the criminal or not, but if he was I reasoned that he would not have the paper on him, but would have hidden it somewhere, and by enlisting the sympathy of the household I could effectually prevent his destroying it. He was already under suspicion, and by making the matter public I secured the services of about ten amateur detectives, who would be watching him unceasingly, and being himself aware of their watchfulness he would not dare seek further to destroy the document. He was therefore forced to depart from the house, leaving it in the spill vase." "But surely Miss Howard had ample opportunities of aiding him." "Yes, but Miss Howard did not know of the paper's existence. In accordance with their prearranged plan, she never spoke to Alfred Inglethorp. They were supposed to be deadly enemies, and until John Cavendish was safely convicted they neither of them dared risk a meeting. Of course I had a watch kept on Mr. Inglethorp, hoping that sooner or later he would lead me to the hiding-place. But he was too clever to take any chances. The paper was safe where it was; since no one had thought of looking there in the first week, it was not likely they would do so afterwards. But for your lucky remark, we might never have been able to bring him to justice." "I understand that now; but when did you first begin to suspect Miss Howard?" "When I discovered that she had told a lie at the inquest about the letter she had received from Mrs. Inglethorp." "Why, what was there to lie about?" "You saw that letter? Do you recall its general appearance?" "Yes more or less." "You will recollect, then, that Mrs. Inglethorp wrote a very distinctive hand, and left large clear spaces between her words. But if you look at the date at the top of the letter you will notice that July 17th' is quite different in this respect. Do you see what I mean?" "No," I confessed, "I don't." "You do not see that that letter was not written on the 17th, but on the 7th the day after Miss Howard's departure? The 1' was written in before the 7' to turn it into the 17th'." "But why?" "That is exactly what I asked myself. Why does Miss | The Mysterious Affair At Styles |
"Would it be of any use, now," | Alice | had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to | was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so | little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming | she swam about, trying to find her way out. "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day." Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!") The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, | I can go back by railway," she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. "I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day." Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!") The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. "Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: "O? est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she | that?" she thought. "I must be growing small again." She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. "That _was_ a narrow escape!" said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; "and now for the garden!" and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, "and things are worse than ever," thought the poor child, "for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that it is!" As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, "and in that case I can go back by railway," she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. "I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day." Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!") The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. "Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: "O? est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. "I quite forgot you didn't like cats." "Not like cats!" cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would _you_ like cats if you were me?" "Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soothing tone: "don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing," Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, "and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. "We won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not." "We indeed!" cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. "As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always _hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name | long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, _she's_ she, and _I'm_ I, and--oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome--no, _that's_ all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I'll try and say '_How doth the little_--'" and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:-- "How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!" "How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!" "I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, "I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying 'Come up again, dear!' I shall only look up and say 'Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else'--but, oh dear!" cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, "I do wish they _would_ put their heads down! I am so _very_ tired of being all alone here!" As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid gloves while she was talking. "How _can_ I have done that?" she thought. "I must be growing small again." She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether. "That _was_ a narrow escape!" said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence; "and now for the garden!" and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, "and things are worse than ever," thought the poor child, "for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that it is!" As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, "and in that case I can go back by railway," she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. "I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day." Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!") The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. "Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: "O? est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. "I quite forgot you didn't like cats." "Not like cats!" cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would _you_ like cats if you were me?" "Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soothing tone: "don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing," Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, "and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. "We won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not." "We indeed!" cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. "As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always _hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again!" "I won't indeed!" said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. "Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?" The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: "There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!" cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, "I'm afraid I've offended it again!" For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went. So she called softly after it, "Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't like them!" When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, "Let us get to the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs." It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore. CHAPTER III. A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would only say, "I am older than you, and must know better;" and this Alice would not | now for the garden!" and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, "and things are worse than ever," thought the poor child, "for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that it is!" As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, "and in that case I can go back by railway," she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. "I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. "I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That _will_ be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day." Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.<|quote|>"Would it be of any use, now,"</|quote|>thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!") The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. "Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: "O? est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. "I quite forgot you didn't like cats." "Not like cats!" cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. "Would _you_ like cats if you were me?" "Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soothing tone: "don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing," Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, "and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. "We won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not." "We indeed!" cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. "As if _I_ would talk on such a subject! Our family always _hated_ cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again!" "I won't indeed!" said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. "Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?" The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: "There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!" cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, "I'm afraid I've offended it again!" For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went. So she called softly after it, "Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't like them!" When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to | Alices Adventures In Wonderland |
"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles." | Margaret | poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss | any longer." To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake." "Well, | explain," she said civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake." "Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house is Mrs. Wilcox s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer." To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake." "Well, I don t know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own chairs. "I really don t know what s to be done." She could not help laughing. The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough." | We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad. When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to do so much." "The house has been empty long enough," said the old woman. Margaret refused to argue. "I dare say we didn t explain," she said civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake." "Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house is Mrs. Wilcox s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer." To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake." "Well, I don t know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own chairs. "I really don t know what s to be done." She could not help laughing. The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough." "I don t know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery. Yes, that s all right. Delightful." "There is still the parlour." She went through the door opposite and drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham Place. "And the dining-room." More curtains were drawn, more | For an appalling thing had happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up near the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace, and her father s sword--this is what bewildered her particularly--had been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes. Miss Avery must have worked for days. "I m afraid this isn t what we meant," she began. "Mr. Wilcox and I never intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my brother s. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad. When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to do so much." "The house has been empty long enough," said the old woman. Margaret refused to argue. "I dare say we didn t explain," she said civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake." "Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house is Mrs. Wilcox s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer." To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake." "Well, I don t know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own chairs. "I really don t know what s to be done." She could not help laughing. The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough." "I don t know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery. Yes, that s all right. Delightful." "There is still the parlour." She went through the door opposite and drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham Place. "And the dining-room." More curtains were drawn, more windows were flung open to the spring. "Then through here--" Miss Avery continued passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost, but Margaret heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. "I ve not finished here yet," she announced, returning. "There s still a deal to do. The farm lads will carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need to go into expense at Hilton." "It is all a mistake," repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her foot down. "A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live at Howards End." "Oh, indeed! On | auntie?" "Madge, go away," said Miss Avery, still invisible. "Auntie, it s Mrs. Wilcox--" Margaret supported her. "Your niece and I have come together." "Madge, go away. This is no moment for your hat." The poor woman went red. "Auntie gets more eccentric lately," she said nervously. "Miss Avery!" called Margaret. "I have come about the furniture. Could you kindly let me in?" "Yes, Mrs. Wilcox," said the voice, "of course." But after that came silence. They called again without response. They walked round the house disconsolately. "I hope Miss Avery is not ill," hazarded Margaret. "Well, if you ll excuse me," said Madge, "perhaps I ought to be leaving you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie is so odd at times." Gathering up her elegancies, she retired defeated, and, as if her departure had loosed a spring, the front door opened at once. Miss Avery said, "Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!" quite pleasantly and calmly. "Thank you so much," began Margaret, but broke off at the sight of an umbrella-stand. It was her own. "Come right into the hall first," said Miss Avery. She drew the curtain, and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling thing had happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up near the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace, and her father s sword--this is what bewildered her particularly--had been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes. Miss Avery must have worked for days. "I m afraid this isn t what we meant," she began. "Mr. Wilcox and I never intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my brother s. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad. When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to do so much." "The house has been empty long enough," said the old woman. Margaret refused to argue. "I dare say we didn t explain," she said civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake." "Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house is Mrs. Wilcox s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer." To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake." "Well, I don t know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own chairs. "I really don t know what s to be done." She could not help laughing. The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough." "I don t know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery. Yes, that s all right. Delightful." "There is still the parlour." She went through the door opposite and drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham Place. "And the dining-room." More curtains were drawn, more windows were flung open to the spring. "Then through here--" Miss Avery continued passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost, but Margaret heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. "I ve not finished here yet," she announced, returning. "There s still a deal to do. The farm lads will carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need to go into expense at Hilton." "It is all a mistake," repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her foot down. "A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live at Howards End." "Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?" "We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and part of this furniture--my part--will go down there presently." She looked at Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain. Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous. She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but unostentatious nobility. "You think that you won t come back to live here, Mrs. Wilcox, but you will." "That remains to be seen," said Margaret, smiling. "We have no intention of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much larger house. Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of course, some day--one never knows, does one?" Miss Avery retorted: "Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don t talk about some day. You are living here now." "Am I?" "You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if you ask me." It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty Margaret rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been obscurely censured. They went into the dining-room, where the sunlight poured in upon her mother s chiffonier, and | niece was now mortified by innumerable chickens, who rushed up to her feet for food, and by a shameless and maternal sow. She did not know what animals were coming to. But her gentility withered at the touch of the sweet air. The wind was rising, scattering the straw and ruffling the tails of the ducks as they floated in families over Evie s pendant. One of those delicious gales of spring, in which leaves still in bud seem to rustle, swept over the land and then fell silent. "Georgie," sang the thrush. "Cuckoo," came furtively from the cliff of pine-trees. "Georgie, pretty Georgie," and the other birds joined in with nonsense. The hedge was a half-painted picture which would be finished in a few days. Celandines grew on its banks, lords and ladies and primroses in the defended hollows; the wild rose-bushes, still bearing their withered hips, showed also the promise of blossom. Spring had come, clad in no classical garb, yet fairer than all springs; fairer even than she who walks through the myrtles of Tuscany with the graces before her and the zephyr behind. The two women walked up the lane full of outward civility. But Margaret was thinking how difficult it was to be earnest about furniture on such a day, and the niece was thinking about hats. Thus engaged, they reached Howards End. Petulant cries of "Auntie!" severed the air. There was no reply, and the front door was locked. "Are you sure that Miss Avery is up here?" asked Margaret. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Wilcox, quite sure. She is here daily." Margaret tried to look in through the dining-room window, but the curtain inside was drawn tightly. So with the drawing-room and the hall. The appearance of these curtains was familiar, yet she did not remember their being there on her other visit; her impression was that Mr. Bryce had taken everything away. They tried the back. Here again they received no answer, and could see nothing; the kitchen-window was fitted with a blind, while the pantry and scullery had pieces of wood propped up against them, which looked ominously like the lids of packing-cases. Margaret thought of her books, and she lifted up her voice also. At the first cry she succeeded. "Well, well!" replied some one inside the house. "If it isn t Mrs. Wilcox come at last!" "Have you got the key, auntie?" "Madge, go away," said Miss Avery, still invisible. "Auntie, it s Mrs. Wilcox--" Margaret supported her. "Your niece and I have come together." "Madge, go away. This is no moment for your hat." The poor woman went red. "Auntie gets more eccentric lately," she said nervously. "Miss Avery!" called Margaret. "I have come about the furniture. Could you kindly let me in?" "Yes, Mrs. Wilcox," said the voice, "of course." But after that came silence. They called again without response. They walked round the house disconsolately. "I hope Miss Avery is not ill," hazarded Margaret. "Well, if you ll excuse me," said Madge, "perhaps I ought to be leaving you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie is so odd at times." Gathering up her elegancies, she retired defeated, and, as if her departure had loosed a spring, the front door opened at once. Miss Avery said, "Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!" quite pleasantly and calmly. "Thank you so much," began Margaret, but broke off at the sight of an umbrella-stand. It was her own. "Come right into the hall first," said Miss Avery. She drew the curtain, and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling thing had happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up near the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace, and her father s sword--this is what bewildered her particularly--had been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes. Miss Avery must have worked for days. "I m afraid this isn t what we meant," she began. "Mr. Wilcox and I never intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my brother s. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad. When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to do so much." "The house has been empty long enough," said the old woman. Margaret refused to argue. "I dare say we didn t explain," she said civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake." "Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house is Mrs. Wilcox s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer." To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake." "Well, I don t know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own chairs. "I really don t know what s to be done." She could not help laughing. The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough." "I don t know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery. Yes, that s all right. Delightful." "There is still the parlour." She went through the door opposite and drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham Place. "And the dining-room." More curtains were drawn, more windows were flung open to the spring. "Then through here--" Miss Avery continued passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost, but Margaret heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. "I ve not finished here yet," she announced, returning. "There s still a deal to do. The farm lads will carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need to go into expense at Hilton." "It is all a mistake," repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her foot down. "A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live at Howards End." "Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?" "We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and part of this furniture--my part--will go down there presently." She looked at Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain. Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous. She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but unostentatious nobility. "You think that you won t come back to live here, Mrs. Wilcox, but you will." "That remains to be seen," said Margaret, smiling. "We have no intention of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much larger house. Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of course, some day--one never knows, does one?" Miss Avery retorted: "Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don t talk about some day. You are living here now." "Am I?" "You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if you ask me." It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty Margaret rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been obscurely censured. They went into the dining-room, where the sunlight poured in upon her mother s chiffonier, and upstairs, where many an old god peeped from a new niche. The furniture fitted extraordinarily well. In the central room--over the hall, the room that Helen had slept in four years ago--Miss Avery had placed Tibby s old bassinette. "The nursery," she said. Margaret turned away without speaking. At last everything was seen. The kitchen and lobby were still stacked with furniture and straw, but, as far as she could make out, nothing had been broken or scratched. A pathetic display of ingenuity! Then they took a friendly stroll in the garden. It had gone wild since her last visit. The gravel sweep was weedy, and grass had sprung up at the very jaws of the garage. And Evie s rockery was only bumps. Perhaps Evie was responsible for Miss Avery s oddness. But Margaret suspected that the cause lay deeper, and that the girl s silly letter had but loosed the irritation of years. "It s a beautiful meadow," she remarked. It was one of those open-air drawing-rooms that have been formed, hundreds of years ago, out of the smaller fields. So the boundary hedge zigzagged down the hill at right angles, and at the bottom there was a little green annex--a sort of powder-closet for the cows. "Yes, the maidy s well enough," said Miss Avery, "for those, that is, who don t suffer from sneezing." And she cackled maliciously. "I ve seen Charlie Wilcox go out to my lads in hay time--oh, they ought to do this--they mustn t do that--he d learn them to be lads. And just then the tickling took him. He has it from his father, with other things. There s not one Wilcox that can stand up against a field in June--I laughed fit to burst while he was courting Ruth." "My brother gets hay fever too," said Margaret. "This house lies too much on the land for them. Naturally, they were glad enough to slip in at first. But Wilcoxes are better than nothing, as I see you ve found." Margaret laughed. "They keep a place going, don t they? Yes, it is just that." "They keep England going, it is my opinion." But Miss Avery upset her by replying: "Ay, they breed like rabbits. Well, well, it s a funny world. But He who made it knows what He wants in it, I suppose. If Mrs. Charlie is expecting her | But after that came silence. They called again without response. They walked round the house disconsolately. "I hope Miss Avery is not ill," hazarded Margaret. "Well, if you ll excuse me," said Madge, "perhaps I ought to be leaving you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie is so odd at times." Gathering up her elegancies, she retired defeated, and, as if her departure had loosed a spring, the front door opened at once. Miss Avery said, "Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!" quite pleasantly and calmly. "Thank you so much," began Margaret, but broke off at the sight of an umbrella-stand. It was her own. "Come right into the hall first," said Miss Avery. She drew the curtain, and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling thing had happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up near the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace, and her father s sword--this is what bewildered her particularly--had been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes. Miss Avery must have worked for days. "I m afraid this isn t what we meant," she began. "Mr. Wilcox and I never intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my brother s. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad. When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to do so much." "The house has been empty long enough," said the old woman. Margaret refused to argue. "I dare say we didn t explain," she said civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake." "Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house is Mrs. Wilcox s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer." To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:<|quote|>"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox s house, the mother of Mr. Charles."</|quote|>"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake." "Well, I don t know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own chairs. "I really don t know what s to be done." She could not help laughing. The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough." "I don t know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery. Yes, that s all right. Delightful." "There is still the parlour." She went through the door opposite and drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham Place. "And the dining-room." More curtains were drawn, more windows were flung open to the spring. "Then through here--" Miss Avery continued passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost, but Margaret heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. "I ve not finished here yet," she announced, returning. "There s still a deal to do. The farm lads will carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need to go into expense at Hilton." "It is all a mistake," repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her foot down. "A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live at Howards End." "Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?" "We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and part of this furniture--my part--will go down there presently." She looked at Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain. Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous. She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but unostentatious nobility. "You think that you won t come back to live here, Mrs. Wilcox, but you will." "That remains to be seen," said Margaret, smiling. "We have no intention of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much larger house. Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of course, some day--one never knows, does one?" Miss Avery retorted: "Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don t talk about some day. You are living here now." "Am I?" "You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if you ask me." It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty Margaret rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been obscurely censured. They went into the dining-room, where the sunlight poured in upon her mother s chiffonier, and upstairs, where many an old god peeped from a new niche. The furniture fitted extraordinarily well. In the central | Howards End |
"Oh well," | Brenda | imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see | shouldn't know. Pretty dim, I imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young | believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr Cruttwell, their bone-setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr Beaver's sex-life?" "I shouldn't know. Pretty dim, I imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping--towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodgekeepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as | small child who attempted to stroke him; later he got lost and was found a few yards away, sitting under a chair and staring at a shred of waste paper. He was quite colourless, with pink nose and lips and pink circles of bald flesh round his eyes. "I don't believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr Cruttwell, their bone-setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr Beaver's sex-life?" "I shouldn't know. Pretty dim, I imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping--towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodgekeepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as a surprise for Tony; they made an appointment with Mr Cruttwell for that afternoon. They talked about Polly Cockpurse's party. "Do come up for it. It's certain to be amusing." "I might... if I can find someone to take me. Tony doesn't like her... I can't go to parties alone | like?" "I hardly know him. I see him at Margot's sometimes. He's a great one for going everywhere." "I thought he was rather pathetic." "Oh, he's _pathetic_ all right. D'you fancy him?" "Heavens, no." They took Djinn for a walk in the park. He was a very unrepaying dog who never looked about him and had to be dragged along by his harness; they took him to Watts's _Physical Energy_; when loosed he stood perfectly still, gazing moodily at the asphalt until they turned towards home; only once did he show any sign of emotion, when he snapped at a small child who attempted to stroke him; later he got lost and was found a few yards away, sitting under a chair and staring at a shred of waste paper. He was quite colourless, with pink nose and lips and pink circles of bald flesh round his eyes. "I don't believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr Cruttwell, their bone-setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr Beaver's sex-life?" "I shouldn't know. Pretty dim, I imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping--towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodgekeepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as a surprise for Tony; they made an appointment with Mr Cruttwell for that afternoon. They talked about Polly Cockpurse's party. "Do come up for it. It's certain to be amusing." "I might... if I can find someone to take me. Tony doesn't like her... I can't go to parties alone at my age." They went out to luncheon, to a new restaurant in Albemarle Street which a friend of theirs named Daisy had recently opened. "You're in luck," said Marjorie, as soon as they got inside the door, "there's your Mr Beaver's mother." She was entertaining a party of eight at a large round table in the centre of the room; she was being paid to do so by Daisy, whose restaurant was not doing all she expected of it--that is to say the luncheon was free and Mrs Beaver was getting the order, should the restaurant still be open, | in a carriage crowded five a side, looking as fresh and fragile as if she had that moment left a circle of masseuses, chiropodists, manicurists and coiffeuses in an hotel suite. It was an aptitude she had, never to look half-finished; when she was really exhausted, as she often was on her return to Hetton after these days in London, she went completely to pieces quite suddenly and became a waif; then she would sit over the fire with a cup of bread and milk, hardly alive, until Tony took her up to bed. Marjorie had her hat on and was sitting at her writing-table puzzling over her cheque-book and a sheaf of bills. "Darling, what _does_ the country do to you? You look like a thousand pounds. Where _did_ you get that suit?" "I don't know. Some shop." "What's the news at Hetton?" "All the same. Tony madly feudal. John Andrew cursing like a stable boy." "And you?" "Me? Oh, I'm all right." "Who's been to stay?" "No one. We had a friend of Tony's called Mr Beaver last week-end." "John Beaver?... How very odd. I shouldn't have thought he was at all Tony's ticket." "He wasn't... What's he like?" "I hardly know him. I see him at Margot's sometimes. He's a great one for going everywhere." "I thought he was rather pathetic." "Oh, he's _pathetic_ all right. D'you fancy him?" "Heavens, no." They took Djinn for a walk in the park. He was a very unrepaying dog who never looked about him and had to be dragged along by his harness; they took him to Watts's _Physical Energy_; when loosed he stood perfectly still, gazing moodily at the asphalt until they turned towards home; only once did he show any sign of emotion, when he snapped at a small child who attempted to stroke him; later he got lost and was found a few yards away, sitting under a chair and staring at a shred of waste paper. He was quite colourless, with pink nose and lips and pink circles of bald flesh round his eyes. "I don't believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr Cruttwell, their bone-setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr Beaver's sex-life?" "I shouldn't know. Pretty dim, I imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping--towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodgekeepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as a surprise for Tony; they made an appointment with Mr Cruttwell for that afternoon. They talked about Polly Cockpurse's party. "Do come up for it. It's certain to be amusing." "I might... if I can find someone to take me. Tony doesn't like her... I can't go to parties alone at my age." They went out to luncheon, to a new restaurant in Albemarle Street which a friend of theirs named Daisy had recently opened. "You're in luck," said Marjorie, as soon as they got inside the door, "there's your Mr Beaver's mother." She was entertaining a party of eight at a large round table in the centre of the room; she was being paid to do so by Daisy, whose restaurant was not doing all she expected of it--that is to say the luncheon was free and Mrs Beaver was getting the order, should the restaurant still be open, for its spring redecorations. It was, transparently, a made-up party, the guests being chosen for no mutual bond--least of all affection for Mrs Beaver or for each other--except that their names were in current use--an accessible but not wholly renegade duke, an unmarried girl of experience, a dancer and a novelist and a scene designer, a shamefaced junior minister who had not realized what he was in for until too late, and Lady Cockpurse. "God, what a party," said Marjorie, waving brightly to them all. "You're both coming to my party, darlings?" Polly Cockpurse's strident tones rang across the restaurant. "Only don't tell anyone about it. It's just a very small, secret party. The house will only hold a few people--just old friends." "It would be wonderful to see what Polly's _real_ old friends were like," said Marjorie. "She hasn't known anyone more than five years." "I wish Tony could see her point." (Although Polly's fortune was derived from men, her popularity was chiefly among women, who admired her clothes and bought them from her second-hand at bargain prices; her first steps to eminence had been in circles so obscure that they had made her no enemies in the world | good-bye that night because Beaver was catching the 9.10. "Do let me know when you come to London." "I may be up this week." Next morning Beaver tipped both butler and footman ten shillings each. Tony, still feeling rather guilty in spite of Brenda's heroic coping, came down to breakfast to see his guest off. Afterwards he went back to Guinevere. "Well, that's the last of _him_. You were superb, darling. I'm sure he's gone back thinking that you're mad about him." "Oh, he wasn't too awful." "No. I must say he took a very intelligent interest when we went round the house." * * * * * Mrs Beaver was eating her yoghourt when Beaver reached home. "Who was there?" "No one." "No one? My poor boy." "They weren't expecting me. It was awful at first but got better. They were just as you said. She's very charming. He scarcely spoke." "I wish I saw her sometimes." "She talked of taking a flat in London." "_Did_ she?" The conversion of stables and garages was an important part of Mrs Beaver's business. "What does she want?" "Something quite simple. Two rooms and a bath. But it's all quite vague. She hasn't said anything to Tony yet." "I am sure I shall be able to find her something." [II] If Brenda had to go to London for a day's shopping, hair-cutting, or bone-setting (a recreation she particularly enjoyed), she went on Wednesday, because the tickets on that day were half the usual price. She left at eight in the morning and got home soon after ten at night. She travelled third-class and the carriages were often full, because other wives on the line took advantage of the cheap fare. She usually spent the day with her younger sister, Marjorie, who was married to the prospective Conservative candidate for a South London constituency of strong Labour sympathies. She was more solid than Brenda. The newspapers used always to refer to them as "the lovely Rex sisters". Marjorie and Allan were hard up and popular; they could not afford a baby; they lived in a little house in the neighbourhood of Portman Square, very convenient for Paddington Station. They had a Pekingese dog named Djinn. Brenda had come on impulse, leaving the butler to ring up and tell Marjorie of her arrival. She emerged from the train, after two hours and a quarter in a carriage crowded five a side, looking as fresh and fragile as if she had that moment left a circle of masseuses, chiropodists, manicurists and coiffeuses in an hotel suite. It was an aptitude she had, never to look half-finished; when she was really exhausted, as she often was on her return to Hetton after these days in London, she went completely to pieces quite suddenly and became a waif; then she would sit over the fire with a cup of bread and milk, hardly alive, until Tony took her up to bed. Marjorie had her hat on and was sitting at her writing-table puzzling over her cheque-book and a sheaf of bills. "Darling, what _does_ the country do to you? You look like a thousand pounds. Where _did_ you get that suit?" "I don't know. Some shop." "What's the news at Hetton?" "All the same. Tony madly feudal. John Andrew cursing like a stable boy." "And you?" "Me? Oh, I'm all right." "Who's been to stay?" "No one. We had a friend of Tony's called Mr Beaver last week-end." "John Beaver?... How very odd. I shouldn't have thought he was at all Tony's ticket." "He wasn't... What's he like?" "I hardly know him. I see him at Margot's sometimes. He's a great one for going everywhere." "I thought he was rather pathetic." "Oh, he's _pathetic_ all right. D'you fancy him?" "Heavens, no." They took Djinn for a walk in the park. He was a very unrepaying dog who never looked about him and had to be dragged along by his harness; they took him to Watts's _Physical Energy_; when loosed he stood perfectly still, gazing moodily at the asphalt until they turned towards home; only once did he show any sign of emotion, when he snapped at a small child who attempted to stroke him; later he got lost and was found a few yards away, sitting under a chair and staring at a shred of waste paper. He was quite colourless, with pink nose and lips and pink circles of bald flesh round his eyes. "I don't believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr Cruttwell, their bone-setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr Beaver's sex-life?" "I shouldn't know. Pretty dim, I imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping--towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodgekeepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as a surprise for Tony; they made an appointment with Mr Cruttwell for that afternoon. They talked about Polly Cockpurse's party. "Do come up for it. It's certain to be amusing." "I might... if I can find someone to take me. Tony doesn't like her... I can't go to parties alone at my age." They went out to luncheon, to a new restaurant in Albemarle Street which a friend of theirs named Daisy had recently opened. "You're in luck," said Marjorie, as soon as they got inside the door, "there's your Mr Beaver's mother." She was entertaining a party of eight at a large round table in the centre of the room; she was being paid to do so by Daisy, whose restaurant was not doing all she expected of it--that is to say the luncheon was free and Mrs Beaver was getting the order, should the restaurant still be open, for its spring redecorations. It was, transparently, a made-up party, the guests being chosen for no mutual bond--least of all affection for Mrs Beaver or for each other--except that their names were in current use--an accessible but not wholly renegade duke, an unmarried girl of experience, a dancer and a novelist and a scene designer, a shamefaced junior minister who had not realized what he was in for until too late, and Lady Cockpurse. "God, what a party," said Marjorie, waving brightly to them all. "You're both coming to my party, darlings?" Polly Cockpurse's strident tones rang across the restaurant. "Only don't tell anyone about it. It's just a very small, secret party. The house will only hold a few people--just old friends." "It would be wonderful to see what Polly's _real_ old friends were like," said Marjorie. "She hasn't known anyone more than five years." "I wish Tony could see her point." (Although Polly's fortune was derived from men, her popularity was chiefly among women, who admired her clothes and bought them from her second-hand at bargain prices; her first steps to eminence had been in circles so obscure that they had made her no enemies in the world to which she aspired; some time ago she had married a good-natured earl, whom nobody else happened to want at the time; since then she had scaled all but the highest peaks of every social mountain.) After luncheon Mrs Beaver came across to their table. "I _must_ come and speak to you, though I'm in a great hurry. It's _so_ long since we met and John has been telling me about a _delightful_ week-end he had with you." "It was very quiet." "That's just what he _loves_. Poor boy, he gets rushed off his feet in London. Tell me, Lady Brenda, is it true you are looking for a flat?--because I think I've got just the place for you. It's being done up now and will be ready well before Christmas." She looked at her watch. "Oh dear, I must fly. You couldn't possibly come in for a cocktail, this evening? Then you could hear all about it." "I _could_..." said Brenda doubtfully. "Then _do_. I'll expect you about six. I daresay you don't know where I live?" She told her and left the table. "What's all this about a flat?" Marjorie asked. "Oh, just something I thought of..." * * * * * That afternoon, as she lay luxuriously on the osteopath's table, and her vertebrae, under his strong fingers, snapped like patent fasteners, Brenda wondered whether Beaver would be at home that evening. "Probably not, if he's so keen on going about," she thought, "and, anyhow, what's the sense?..." But he was there, in spite of two other invitations. She heard all about the maisonette. Mrs Beaver knew her job. What people wanted, she said, was somewhere to dress and telephone. She was subdividing a small house in Belgravia into six flats at three pounds a week, of one room each and a bath; the bathrooms were going to be slap-up, with limitless hot water and every transatlantic refinement; the other room would have a large built-in wardrobe with electric light inside, and space for a bed. It would fill a long-felt need, Mrs Beaver said. "I'll ask my husband and let you know." "You _will_ let me know soon, won't you, because _everyone_ will be wanting one." "I'll let you know very soon." When she had to go, Beaver came with her to the station. She usually ate some chocolate and buns in her carriage; they bought | of Portman Square, very convenient for Paddington Station. They had a Pekingese dog named Djinn. Brenda had come on impulse, leaving the butler to ring up and tell Marjorie of her arrival. She emerged from the train, after two hours and a quarter in a carriage crowded five a side, looking as fresh and fragile as if she had that moment left a circle of masseuses, chiropodists, manicurists and coiffeuses in an hotel suite. It was an aptitude she had, never to look half-finished; when she was really exhausted, as she often was on her return to Hetton after these days in London, she went completely to pieces quite suddenly and became a waif; then she would sit over the fire with a cup of bread and milk, hardly alive, until Tony took her up to bed. Marjorie had her hat on and was sitting at her writing-table puzzling over her cheque-book and a sheaf of bills. "Darling, what _does_ the country do to you? You look like a thousand pounds. Where _did_ you get that suit?" "I don't know. Some shop." "What's the news at Hetton?" "All the same. Tony madly feudal. John Andrew cursing like a stable boy." "And you?" "Me? Oh, I'm all right." "Who's been to stay?" "No one. We had a friend of Tony's called Mr Beaver last week-end." "John Beaver?... How very odd. I shouldn't have thought he was at all Tony's ticket." "He wasn't... What's he like?" "I hardly know him. I see him at Margot's sometimes. He's a great one for going everywhere." "I thought he was rather pathetic." "Oh, he's _pathetic_ all right. D'you fancy him?" "Heavens, no." They took Djinn for a walk in the park. He was a very unrepaying dog who never looked about him and had to be dragged along by his harness; they took him to Watts's _Physical Energy_; when loosed he stood perfectly still, gazing moodily at the asphalt until they turned towards home; only once did he show any sign of emotion, when he snapped at a small child who attempted to stroke him; later he got lost and was found a few yards away, sitting under a chair and staring at a shred of waste paper. He was quite colourless, with pink nose and lips and pink circles of bald flesh round his eyes. "I don't believe he has a spark of human feeling," said Marjorie. They talked about Mr Cruttwell, their bone-setter, and Marjorie's new treatment. "He's never done that to me," said Brenda enviously; presently, "What do you suppose is Mr Beaver's sex-life?" "I shouldn't know. Pretty dim, I imagine... You _do_ fancy him?"<|quote|>"Oh well,"</|quote|>said Brenda, "I don't see such a lot of young men..." They left the dog at home and did some shopping--towels for the nursery, pickled peaches, a clock for one of the lodgekeepers who was celebrating his sixtieth year of service at Hetton, a pot of Morecambe Bay shrimps as a surprise for Tony; they made an appointment with Mr Cruttwell for that afternoon. They talked about Polly Cockpurse's party. "Do come up for it. It's certain to be amusing." "I might... if I can find someone to take me. Tony doesn't like her... I can't go to parties alone at my age." They went out to luncheon, to a new restaurant in Albemarle Street which a friend of theirs named Daisy had recently opened. "You're in luck," said Marjorie, as soon as they got inside the door, "there's your Mr Beaver's mother." She was entertaining a party of eight at a large round table in the centre of the room; she was being paid to do so by Daisy, whose restaurant was not doing all she expected of it--that is to say the luncheon was free and Mrs Beaver was getting the order, should the restaurant still be open, for its spring redecorations. It was, transparently, a made-up party, the guests being chosen for no mutual bond--least of all affection for Mrs Beaver or for each other--except that their names were in current use--an accessible but not wholly renegade duke, an unmarried girl of experience, a dancer and a novelist and a scene designer, a shamefaced junior minister who had not realized what he was in for until too late, and Lady Cockpurse. "God, what a party," said Marjorie, waving brightly to them all. "You're both coming to my party, darlings?" Polly Cockpurse's strident tones rang across the restaurant. "Only don't tell anyone about it. It's just a very small, secret party. The house will only hold a few people--just old friends." "It would be wonderful to see what Polly's _real_ old friends were like," said Marjorie. "She hasn't known anyone more than five years." "I wish Tony could see her point." (Although Polly's fortune was derived from men, her popularity was chiefly among women, who admired her clothes and bought them from her second-hand at bargain prices; her first steps to eminence had been in circles so obscure that they had made her no enemies in the world to which she aspired; some time ago she had married a good-natured earl, whom nobody else happened to want at the time; since then she had scaled all but the highest peaks of every social mountain.) After luncheon Mrs Beaver came across to their table. "I _must_ come and speak to you, though I'm in a great hurry. It's _so_ long since we met and John | A Handful Of Dust |
“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.” | Bender | presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, | coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” | round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a | it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect | must really understand that you can’t have everything. You mustn’t expect to ravage Dedborough.” He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. “I guess it’s a bogus Cuyp--but I know Lord Theign _has_ things. He won’t do business?” “He’s not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place,” Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression--!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,” Mr. Bender asked, “is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with | up to” had never had such special softness and warmth of pressure. “Do you want very, _very_ much----?” She had already caught him up. “‘Very, very much’ for her? Well, Mr. Bender,” she smilingly replied, “I think I should like her full value.” “I mean” --he kindly discriminated-- “do you want so badly to work her off?” “It would be an intense convenience to me--so much so that your telegram made me at once fondly hope you’d be arriving to conclude.” Such measure of response as he had good-naturedly given her was the mere frayed edge of a mastering detachment, the copious, impatient range elsewhere of his true attention. Somehow, however, he still seemed kind even while, turning his back upon her, he moved off to look at one of the several, the famous Dedborough pictures--stray specimens, by every presumption, lost a little in the whole bright bigness. “‘Conclude’?” he echoed as he approached a significantly small canvas. “You ladies want to get there before the road’s so much as laid or the country’s safe! Do you know what this _here_ is?” he at once went on. “Oh, you can’t have _that!_” she cried as with full authority-- “and you must really understand that you can’t have everything. You mustn’t expect to ravage Dedborough.” He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. “I guess it’s a bogus Cuyp--but I know Lord Theign _has_ things. He won’t do business?” “He’s not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place,” Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression--!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,” Mr. Bender asked, “is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out--!” She gave him in fine his choice. But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his prudence. “Are there any pictures in the park?” Lady Grace’s facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more play. “We find our park itself rather a picture.” Mr. Bender’s own levity at any rate persisted. “With a big Temperance school-feast?” “Mr. Bender’s a great judge of pictures,” Lady | person as he consented, with less of demonstration but more of attention, to look down upon her. She could therefore but reinforce it by an intenser note. “To tell me you _will_ treat?” Mr. Bender had six feet of stature and an air as of having received benefits at the hands of fortune. Substantial, powerful, easy, he shone as with a glorious cleanness, a supplied and equipped and appointed sanity and security; aids to action that might have figured a pair of very ample wings--wide pinions for the present conveniently folded, but that he would certainly on occasion agitate for great efforts and spread for great flights. These things would have made him quite an admirable, even a worshipful, image of full-blown life and character, had not the affirmation and the emphasis halted in one important particular. Fortune, felicity, nature, the perverse or interfering old fairy at his cradle-side--whatever the ministering power might have been--had simply overlooked and neglected his vast wholly-shaven face, which thus showed not so much for perfunctorily scamped as for not treated, as for neither formed nor fondled nor finished, at all. Nothing seemed to have been done for it but what the razor and the sponge, the tooth-brush and the looking-glass could officiously do; it had in short resisted any possibly finer attrition at the hands of fifty years of offered experience. It had developed on the lines, if lines they could be called, of the mere scoured and polished and initialled “mug” rather than to any effect of a composed physiognomy; though we must at the same time add that its wearer carried this featureless disk as with the warranted confidence that might have attended a warning headlight or a glaring motor-lamp. The object, however one named it, showed you at least where he was, and most often that he was straight upon you. It was fearlessly and resistingly across the path of his advance that Lady Sandgate had thrown herself, and indeed with such success that he soon connected her demonstration with a particular motive. “For your grandmother, Lady Sandgate?” he then returned. “For my grandmother’s _mother_, Mr. Bender--the most beautiful woman of her time and the greatest of all Lawrences, no matter whose; as you quite acknowledged, you know, in our talk in Bruton Street.” Mr. Bender bethought himself further--yet drawing it out; as if the familiar fact of his being “made up to” had never had such special softness and warmth of pressure. “Do you want very, _very_ much----?” She had already caught him up. “‘Very, very much’ for her? Well, Mr. Bender,” she smilingly replied, “I think I should like her full value.” “I mean” --he kindly discriminated-- “do you want so badly to work her off?” “It would be an intense convenience to me--so much so that your telegram made me at once fondly hope you’d be arriving to conclude.” Such measure of response as he had good-naturedly given her was the mere frayed edge of a mastering detachment, the copious, impatient range elsewhere of his true attention. Somehow, however, he still seemed kind even while, turning his back upon her, he moved off to look at one of the several, the famous Dedborough pictures--stray specimens, by every presumption, lost a little in the whole bright bigness. “‘Conclude’?” he echoed as he approached a significantly small canvas. “You ladies want to get there before the road’s so much as laid or the country’s safe! Do you know what this _here_ is?” he at once went on. “Oh, you can’t have _that!_” she cried as with full authority-- “and you must really understand that you can’t have everything. You mustn’t expect to ravage Dedborough.” He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. “I guess it’s a bogus Cuyp--but I know Lord Theign _has_ things. He won’t do business?” “He’s not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place,” Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression--!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,” Mr. Bender asked, “is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out--!” She gave him in fine his choice. But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his prudence. “Are there any pictures in the park?” Lady Grace’s facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more play. “We find our park itself rather a picture.” Mr. Bender’s own levity at any rate persisted. “With a big Temperance school-feast?” “Mr. Bender’s a great judge of pictures,” Lady Sandgate said as to forestall any impression of excessive freedom. “Will there be more tea?” he pursued, almost presuming on this. It showed Lady Grace for comparatively candid and literal. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of tea.” This appeared to determine Mr. Bender. “Well, Lady Grace, I’m after pictures, but I take them ‘neat.’ May I go right round here?” “Perhaps, love,” Lady Sandgate at once said, “you’ll let me show him.” “A moment, dear” --Lady Grace gently demurred. “Do go round,” she conformably added to Mr. Bender; “take your ease and your time. Everything’s open and visible, and, with our whole company dispersed, you’ll have the place to yourself.” He rose, in his genial mass, to the opportunity. “I’ll be in clover--sure!” But present to him was the richest corner of the pasture, which he could fluently enough name. “And I’ll find ‘The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge’?” She indicated, off to the right, where a stately perspective opened, the quarter of the saloon to which we have seen Mr. Banks retire. “At the very end of _those_ rooms.” He had wide eyes for the vista. “About thirty in a row, hey?” And he was already off. “I’ll work right through!” III Left with her friend, Lady Grace had a prompt question. “Lord John warned me he was ‘funny’--but you already know him?” There might have been a sense of embarrassment in the way in which, as to gain time, Lady Sandgate pointed, instead of answering, to the small picture pronounced upon by Mr. Bender. “He thinks your little Cuyp a fraud.” “That one?” Lady Grace could but stare. “The wretch!” However, she made, without alarm, no more of it; she returned to her previous question. “You’ve met him before?” “Just a little--in town. Being ‘after pictures’” Lady Sandgate explained, “he has been after my great-grandmother.” “She,” said Lady Grace with amusement, “must have found him funny! But he can clearly take care of himself, while Kitty takes care of Lord John, and while you, if you’ll be so good, go back to support father--in the hour of his triumph: which he wants you so much to witness that he complains of your desertion and goes so far as to speak of you as sneaking away.” Lady Sandgate, with a slight flush, turned it over. “I delight in his triumph, and whatever I do is at least above board; but if | resistingly across the path of his advance that Lady Sandgate had thrown herself, and indeed with such success that he soon connected her demonstration with a particular motive. “For your grandmother, Lady Sandgate?” he then returned. “For my grandmother’s _mother_, Mr. Bender--the most beautiful woman of her time and the greatest of all Lawrences, no matter whose; as you quite acknowledged, you know, in our talk in Bruton Street.” Mr. Bender bethought himself further--yet drawing it out; as if the familiar fact of his being “made up to” had never had such special softness and warmth of pressure. “Do you want very, _very_ much----?” She had already caught him up. “‘Very, very much’ for her? Well, Mr. Bender,” she smilingly replied, “I think I should like her full value.” “I mean” --he kindly discriminated-- “do you want so badly to work her off?” “It would be an intense convenience to me--so much so that your telegram made me at once fondly hope you’d be arriving to conclude.” Such measure of response as he had good-naturedly given her was the mere frayed edge of a mastering detachment, the copious, impatient range elsewhere of his true attention. Somehow, however, he still seemed kind even while, turning his back upon her, he moved off to look at one of the several, the famous Dedborough pictures--stray specimens, by every presumption, lost a little in the whole bright bigness. “‘Conclude’?” he echoed as he approached a significantly small canvas. “You ladies want to get there before the road’s so much as laid or the country’s safe! Do you know what this _here_ is?” he at once went on. “Oh, you can’t have _that!_” she cried as with full authority-- “and you must really understand that you can’t have everything. You mustn’t expect to ravage Dedborough.” He had his nose meanwhile close to the picture. “I guess it’s a bogus Cuyp--but I know Lord Theign _has_ things. He won’t do business?” “He’s not in the least, and can never be, in my tight place,” Lady Sandgate replied; “but he’s as proud as he’s kind, dear man, and as solid as he’s proud; so that if you came down under a different impression--!” Well, she could only exhale the folly of his error with an unction that represented, whatever he might think of it, all her competence to answer for their host. He scarce thought of it enough, on any side, however, to be diverted from prior dispositions. “I came on an understanding that I should find my friend Lord John, and that Lord Theign would, on his introduction, kindly let me look round. But being before lunch in Bruton Street I knocked at your door----” “For another look,” she quickly interposed, “at my Lawrence?” “For another look at _you_, Lady Sandgate--your great-grandmother wasn’t required. Informed you were here, and struck with the coincidence of my being myself presently due,” he went on,<|quote|>“I despatched you my wire, on coming away, just to keep up your spirits.”</|quote|>“You _don’t_ keep them up, you depress them to anguish,” she almost passionately protested, “when you don’t tell me you’ll treat!” He paused in his preoccupation, his perambulation, conscious evidently of no reluctance that was worth a scene with so charming and so hungry a woman. “Well, if it’s a question of your otherwise suffering torments, may I have another interview with the old lady?” “Dear Mr. Bender, she’s in the flower of her youth; she only yearns for interviews, and you may have,” Lady Sandgate earnestly declared, “as many as you like.” “Oh, you must be there to protect me!” “Then as soon as I return----!” “Well,” --it clearly cost him little to say-- “I’ll come right round.” She joyously registered the vow. “Only meanwhile then, please, never a word!” “Never a word, certainly. But where all this time,” Mr. Bender asked, “is Lord John?” Lady Sandgate, as he spoke, found her eyes meeting those of a young woman who, presenting herself from without, stood framed in the doorway to the terrace; a slight fair grave young woman, of middle, stature and simply dressed, whose brow showed clear even under the heavy shade of a large hat surmounted with big black bows and feathers. Her eyes had vaguely questioned those of her elder, who at once replied to the gentleman forming the subject of their inquiry: “Lady Grace must know.” At this the young woman came forward, and Lady Sandgate introduced the visitor. “My dear Grace, this is Mr. Breckenridge Bender.” The younger daughter of the house might have arrived in preoccupation, but she had urbanity to spare. “Of whom Lord John has told me,” she returned, “and whom I’m glad to see. Lord John,” she explained to his waiting friend, “is detained a moment in the park, open to-day to a big Temperance school-feast, where our party is mostly gathered; so that if you care to go out--!” She gave him in fine his choice. But this was clearly a thing that, in the conditions, Mr. Bender wasn’t the man to take precipitately; though his big useful smile disguised his prudence. “Are there any pictures in the park?” Lady Grace’s facial response represented less humour perhaps, but more play. “We find our park itself rather a picture.” Mr. Bender’s own levity at any rate persisted. “With a big Temperance school-feast?” “Mr. Bender’s a great judge of pictures,” Lady Sandgate said as to forestall any impression of excessive freedom. “Will there be more tea?” he pursued, almost presuming on this. It showed Lady Grace for comparatively candid and literal. “Oh, there’ll be plenty of tea.” This appeared to determine Mr. Bender. “Well, Lady Grace, I’m after pictures, but I take them ‘neat.’ May I go right round here?” “Perhaps, love,” Lady Sandgate at once said, “you’ll let me show him.” “A moment, dear” --Lady Grace gently demurred. “Do go round,” she conformably added to Mr. Bender; “take your ease and your time. Everything’s open and visible, and, with our whole company dispersed, you’ll have the place to yourself.” He rose, in his genial mass, to the opportunity. “I’ll be in clover--sure!” But present to him was the richest corner of the pasture, which he could fluently enough name. “And I’ll find ‘The Beautiful Duchess of Waterbridge’?” She indicated, off to the right, where a stately perspective opened, the quarter of the saloon to which we have seen Mr. Banks retire. “At the very end of _those_ rooms.” He had wide eyes for the vista. “About thirty in a row, hey?” And he was already off. “I’ll work right through!” | The Outcry |
“Yes.” | Mrs. Bossier | I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my | and some books.” “Books! Can I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my ears, my thoughts ran on | suppose a hundredweight of currants will be sufficient?” “Yes; I should think so.” “Seven dozen yards of unbleached calico be enough?” “Yes; plenty.” “Which tea-service did you order?” “Number two.” “Do you or Sybylla want anything extra?” “Yes; parasols, gloves, and some books.” “Books! Can I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my ears, my thoughts ran on uncle Jay-Jay. He had promised to be home in time for my birthday spread, and I was sure he had a present for me. What would it be?—something nice. He would be nearly sure to bring someone home with him | flitted round the garden, and thousands of bees droned lazily among the flowers. I closed my eyes—my being filled with the beauty of it all. I could hear grannie’s pen fly over the paper as she made out a list of Christmas supplies on a table near me. “Helen, I suppose a hundredweight of currants will be sufficient?” “Yes; I should think so.” “Seven dozen yards of unbleached calico be enough?” “Yes; plenty.” “Which tea-service did you order?” “Number two.” “Do you or Sybylla want anything extra?” “Yes; parasols, gloves, and some books.” “Books! Can I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my ears, my thoughts ran on uncle Jay-Jay. He had promised to be home in time for my birthday spread, and I was sure he had a present for me. What would it be?—something nice. He would be nearly sure to bring someone home with him from Cummabella, and we would have games and fun to no end. I was just seventeen, only seventeen, and had a long, long life before me wherein to enjoy myself. Oh, it was good to be alive! What a delightful place the world was!—so accommodating, I felt complete mistress of | Nearer they wheeled until I could hear their discordant screech. The thermometer on the wall rested at 104 degrees despite the dense shade thrown on the broad old veranda by the foliage of creepers, shrubs, and trees. The gurgling rush of the creek, the scent of the flower-laden garden, and the stamp, stamp of a horse in the orchard as he attempted to rid himself of tormenting flies, filled my senses. The warmth was delightful. Summer is heavenly, I said—life is a joy. Aunt Helen’s slender fingers looked artistic among some pretty fancy-work upon which she was engaged. Bright butterflies flitted round the garden, and thousands of bees droned lazily among the flowers. I closed my eyes—my being filled with the beauty of it all. I could hear grannie’s pen fly over the paper as she made out a list of Christmas supplies on a table near me. “Helen, I suppose a hundredweight of currants will be sufficient?” “Yes; I should think so.” “Seven dozen yards of unbleached calico be enough?” “Yes; plenty.” “Which tea-service did you order?” “Number two.” “Do you or Sybylla want anything extra?” “Yes; parasols, gloves, and some books.” “Books! Can I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my ears, my thoughts ran on uncle Jay-Jay. He had promised to be home in time for my birthday spread, and I was sure he had a present for me. What would it be?—something nice. He would be nearly sure to bring someone home with him from Cummabella, and we would have games and fun to no end. I was just seventeen, only seventeen, and had a long, long life before me wherein to enjoy myself. Oh, it was good to be alive! What a delightful place the world was!—so accommodating, I felt complete mistress of it. It was like an orange—I merely had to squeeze it and it gave forth sweets plenteously. The stream sounded far away, the sunlight blazed and danced, grannie’s voice was a pleasant murmur in my ear, the cockatoos screamed over the house and passed away to the west. Summer is heavenly and life is a joy, I reiterated. Joy! Joy! There was joy in the quit! quit! of the green-and-crimson parrots, which swung for a moment in the rose-bush over the gate, and then whizzed on into the summer day. There was joy in the gleam of the sun and | dismounted at the front gate at 2.30 p.m., a dusty, heated, tired girl. Grannie came out to question me regarding the sex, age, condition, and species of the sheep, what was their destination, whether they were in search of grass or were for sale, had they spread or eaten much grass, and had the men been civil? When I had satisfactorily informed her on all these points, she bade me have something to eat, to bathe and dress, and gave me a holiday for the remainder of the day. My hair was grey with dust, so I washed all over, arrayed myself in a cool white dress, and throwing myself in a squatter’s chair in the veranda, spread my hair over the back of it to dry. Copies of Gordon, Kendall, and Lawson were on my lap, but I was too physically content and comfortable to indulge in even these, my sworn friends and companions. I surrendered myself to the mere joy of being alive. How the sunlight blazed and danced in the roadway—the leaves of the gum-trees gleaming in it like a myriad gems! A cloud of white, which I knew to be cockatoos, circled over the distant hilltop. Nearer they wheeled until I could hear their discordant screech. The thermometer on the wall rested at 104 degrees despite the dense shade thrown on the broad old veranda by the foliage of creepers, shrubs, and trees. The gurgling rush of the creek, the scent of the flower-laden garden, and the stamp, stamp of a horse in the orchard as he attempted to rid himself of tormenting flies, filled my senses. The warmth was delightful. Summer is heavenly, I said—life is a joy. Aunt Helen’s slender fingers looked artistic among some pretty fancy-work upon which she was engaged. Bright butterflies flitted round the garden, and thousands of bees droned lazily among the flowers. I closed my eyes—my being filled with the beauty of it all. I could hear grannie’s pen fly over the paper as she made out a list of Christmas supplies on a table near me. “Helen, I suppose a hundredweight of currants will be sufficient?” “Yes; I should think so.” “Seven dozen yards of unbleached calico be enough?” “Yes; plenty.” “Which tea-service did you order?” “Number two.” “Do you or Sybylla want anything extra?” “Yes; parasols, gloves, and some books.” “Books! Can I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my ears, my thoughts ran on uncle Jay-Jay. He had promised to be home in time for my birthday spread, and I was sure he had a present for me. What would it be?—something nice. He would be nearly sure to bring someone home with him from Cummabella, and we would have games and fun to no end. I was just seventeen, only seventeen, and had a long, long life before me wherein to enjoy myself. Oh, it was good to be alive! What a delightful place the world was!—so accommodating, I felt complete mistress of it. It was like an orange—I merely had to squeeze it and it gave forth sweets plenteously. The stream sounded far away, the sunlight blazed and danced, grannie’s voice was a pleasant murmur in my ear, the cockatoos screamed over the house and passed away to the west. Summer is heavenly and life is a joy, I reiterated. Joy! Joy! There was joy in the quit! quit! of the green-and-crimson parrots, which swung for a moment in the rose-bush over the gate, and then whizzed on into the summer day. There was joy in the gleam of the sun and in the hum of the bees, and it throbbed in my heart. Joy! Joy! A jackass laughed his joy as he perched on the telegraph wire out in the road. Joy! joy! Summer is a dream of delight and life is a joy, I said in my heart. I was repeating the one thing over and over—but ah! it was a measure of happiness which allowed of much repetition. The cool murmur of the creek grew far away, I felt my poetry books slip off my knees and fall to the floor, but I was too content to bother about them—too happy to need their consolation, which I had previously so often and so hungrily sought. Youth! Joy! Warmth! The clack of the garden gate, as it swung to, awoke me from a pleasant sleep. Grannie had left the veranda, and on the table where she had been writing aunt Helen was filling many vases with maidenhair fern and La France roses. A pleasant clatter from the dining-room announced that my birthday tea was in active preparation. The position of the yellow sunbeams at the far end of the wide veranda told that the dense shadows were lengthening, and that | good travelling. “Right you are, boss,” they answered; and returning to my side he told me his name was George Ledwood, and made some remarks about the great drought and so on, while we rode in the best places to keep out of the dust and in the shade. I asked questions such as whence came the sheep? whither were they bound? and how long had they been on the road? And having exhausted these orthodox remarks, we fell a-talking in dead earnest without the least restraint. I listened with interest to stories of weeks and weeks spent beneath the sun and stars while crossing widths of saltbush country, mulga and myall scrubs, of encounters with blacks in Queensland, and was favoured with a graphic description of a big strike among the shearers when the narrator had been boss-of-the-board out beyond Bourke. He spoke as though well educated, and a gentleman—as drovers often are. Why, then, was he on the road? I put him down as a scapegrace, for he had all the winning pleasant manner of a ne’er-do-well. At noon—a nice, blazing, dusty noon—we halted within a mile of Caddagat for lunch. I could have easily ridden home for mine, but preferred to have it with the drovers for fun. The men boiled the billy and made the tea, which we drank out of tin pots, with tinned fish and damper off tin plates as the completion of the menu, Mr Ledwood and I at a little distance from the men. Tea boiled in a billy at a bush fire has a deliciously aromatic flavour, and I enjoyed my birthday lunch immensely. Leaving the cook to collect the things and put them in the spring-cart, we continued on our way, lazily lolling on our horses and chewing gum-leaves as we went. When the last of the sheep got off the Caddagat run it was nearing two o’clock. Mr Ledwood and I shook hands at parting, each expressing a wish that we might meet again some day. I turned and rode homewards. I looked back and saw the drover gazing after me. I waved my hand; he raised his hat and smiled, displaying his teeth, a gleam of white in his sun-browned face. I kissed my hand to him; he bowed low; I whistled to my dog; he resumed his way behind the crawling sheep; I cantered home quickly and dismounted at the front gate at 2.30 p.m., a dusty, heated, tired girl. Grannie came out to question me regarding the sex, age, condition, and species of the sheep, what was their destination, whether they were in search of grass or were for sale, had they spread or eaten much grass, and had the men been civil? When I had satisfactorily informed her on all these points, she bade me have something to eat, to bathe and dress, and gave me a holiday for the remainder of the day. My hair was grey with dust, so I washed all over, arrayed myself in a cool white dress, and throwing myself in a squatter’s chair in the veranda, spread my hair over the back of it to dry. Copies of Gordon, Kendall, and Lawson were on my lap, but I was too physically content and comfortable to indulge in even these, my sworn friends and companions. I surrendered myself to the mere joy of being alive. How the sunlight blazed and danced in the roadway—the leaves of the gum-trees gleaming in it like a myriad gems! A cloud of white, which I knew to be cockatoos, circled over the distant hilltop. Nearer they wheeled until I could hear their discordant screech. The thermometer on the wall rested at 104 degrees despite the dense shade thrown on the broad old veranda by the foliage of creepers, shrubs, and trees. The gurgling rush of the creek, the scent of the flower-laden garden, and the stamp, stamp of a horse in the orchard as he attempted to rid himself of tormenting flies, filled my senses. The warmth was delightful. Summer is heavenly, I said—life is a joy. Aunt Helen’s slender fingers looked artistic among some pretty fancy-work upon which she was engaged. Bright butterflies flitted round the garden, and thousands of bees droned lazily among the flowers. I closed my eyes—my being filled with the beauty of it all. I could hear grannie’s pen fly over the paper as she made out a list of Christmas supplies on a table near me. “Helen, I suppose a hundredweight of currants will be sufficient?” “Yes; I should think so.” “Seven dozen yards of unbleached calico be enough?” “Yes; plenty.” “Which tea-service did you order?” “Number two.” “Do you or Sybylla want anything extra?” “Yes; parasols, gloves, and some books.” “Books! Can I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my ears, my thoughts ran on uncle Jay-Jay. He had promised to be home in time for my birthday spread, and I was sure he had a present for me. What would it be?—something nice. He would be nearly sure to bring someone home with him from Cummabella, and we would have games and fun to no end. I was just seventeen, only seventeen, and had a long, long life before me wherein to enjoy myself. Oh, it was good to be alive! What a delightful place the world was!—so accommodating, I felt complete mistress of it. It was like an orange—I merely had to squeeze it and it gave forth sweets plenteously. The stream sounded far away, the sunlight blazed and danced, grannie’s voice was a pleasant murmur in my ear, the cockatoos screamed over the house and passed away to the west. Summer is heavenly and life is a joy, I reiterated. Joy! Joy! There was joy in the quit! quit! of the green-and-crimson parrots, which swung for a moment in the rose-bush over the gate, and then whizzed on into the summer day. There was joy in the gleam of the sun and in the hum of the bees, and it throbbed in my heart. Joy! Joy! A jackass laughed his joy as he perched on the telegraph wire out in the road. Joy! joy! Summer is a dream of delight and life is a joy, I said in my heart. I was repeating the one thing over and over—but ah! it was a measure of happiness which allowed of much repetition. The cool murmur of the creek grew far away, I felt my poetry books slip off my knees and fall to the floor, but I was too content to bother about them—too happy to need their consolation, which I had previously so often and so hungrily sought. Youth! Joy! Warmth! The clack of the garden gate, as it swung to, awoke me from a pleasant sleep. Grannie had left the veranda, and on the table where she had been writing aunt Helen was filling many vases with maidenhair fern and La France roses. A pleasant clatter from the dining-room announced that my birthday tea was in active preparation. The position of the yellow sunbeams at the far end of the wide veranda told that the dense shadows were lengthening, and that the last of the afternoon was wheeling westward. Taking this in, in an instant I straightened the piece of mosquito-netting, which, to protect me from the flies, someone—auntie probably—had spread across my face, and feigned to be yet asleep. By the footsteps which sounded on the stoned garden walk, I knew that Harold Beecham was one of the individuals approaching. “How do you do, Mrs Bell? Allow me to introduce my friend, Archie Goodchum. Mrs Bell, Mr Goodchum. Hasn’t it been a roaster today? Considerably over 100 degrees in the shade. Terribly hot!” Aunt Helen acknowledged the introduction, and seated her guests, saying: “Harry, have you got an artistic eye? If so, you can assist me with these flowers. So might Mr Goodchum, if he feels disposed.” Harold accepted the proposal, and remarked: “What is the matter with your niece? It is the first time I ever saw her quiet.” “Yes; she is a noisy little article—a perfect whirlwind in the house—but she is a little tired this afternoon; she has been seeing those sheep through today.” “Don’t you think it would be a good lark if I get something and tickle her?” said Goodchum. “Yes, do,” said Harold; “but look out for squalls. She is a great little fizzer.” “Then she might be insulted.” “Not she,” interposed auntie. “No one will enjoy the fun more than herself.” I had my eyes half open beneath the net, so saw him cautiously approach with a rose-stem between his fingers. Being extremely sensitive to tickling, so soon as touched under the ear I took a flying leap from the chair somewhat disconcerting my tormentor. He was a pleasant-looking young fellow somewhere about twenty, whose face was quite familiar to me. He smiled so good-humouredly at me that I widely did the same in return, and he came forward with extended hand, exclaiming, “At last!” The others looked on in surprise, Harold remarking suspiciously, “You said you were unacquainted with Miss Melvyn, but an introduction does not seem necessary.” “Oh, yes it is,” chirped Mr Goodchum. “I haven’t the slightest idea of the young lady’s name.” “Don’t know each other!” ejaculated Harold; and grannie, who had appeared upon the scene, inquired stiffly what we meant by such capers if unacquainted. Mr Goodchum hastened to explain. “I have seen the young lady on several occasions in the bank where I am employed, and I | Tea boiled in a billy at a bush fire has a deliciously aromatic flavour, and I enjoyed my birthday lunch immensely. Leaving the cook to collect the things and put them in the spring-cart, we continued on our way, lazily lolling on our horses and chewing gum-leaves as we went. When the last of the sheep got off the Caddagat run it was nearing two o’clock. Mr Ledwood and I shook hands at parting, each expressing a wish that we might meet again some day. I turned and rode homewards. I looked back and saw the drover gazing after me. I waved my hand; he raised his hat and smiled, displaying his teeth, a gleam of white in his sun-browned face. I kissed my hand to him; he bowed low; I whistled to my dog; he resumed his way behind the crawling sheep; I cantered home quickly and dismounted at the front gate at 2.30 p.m., a dusty, heated, tired girl. Grannie came out to question me regarding the sex, age, condition, and species of the sheep, what was their destination, whether they were in search of grass or were for sale, had they spread or eaten much grass, and had the men been civil? When I had satisfactorily informed her on all these points, she bade me have something to eat, to bathe and dress, and gave me a holiday for the remainder of the day. My hair was grey with dust, so I washed all over, arrayed myself in a cool white dress, and throwing myself in a squatter’s chair in the veranda, spread my hair over the back of it to dry. Copies of Gordon, Kendall, and Lawson were on my lap, but I was too physically content and comfortable to indulge in even these, my sworn friends and companions. I surrendered myself to the mere joy of being alive. How the sunlight blazed and danced in the roadway—the leaves of the gum-trees gleaming in it like a myriad gems! A cloud of white, which I knew to be cockatoos, circled over the distant hilltop. Nearer they wheeled until I could hear their discordant screech. The thermometer on the wall rested at 104 degrees despite the dense shade thrown on the broad old veranda by the foliage of creepers, shrubs, and trees. The gurgling rush of the creek, the scent of the flower-laden garden, and the stamp, stamp of a horse in the orchard as he attempted to rid himself of tormenting flies, filled my senses. The warmth was delightful. Summer is heavenly, I said—life is a joy. Aunt Helen’s slender fingers looked artistic among some pretty fancy-work upon which she was engaged. Bright butterflies flitted round the garden, and thousands of bees droned lazily among the flowers. I closed my eyes—my being filled with the beauty of it all. I could hear grannie’s pen fly over the paper as she made out a list of Christmas supplies on a table near me. “Helen, I suppose a hundredweight of currants will be sufficient?” “Yes; I should think so.” “Seven dozen yards of unbleached calico be enough?” “Yes; plenty.” “Which tea-service did you order?” “Number two.” “Do you or Sybylla want anything extra?” “Yes; parasols, gloves, and some books.” “Books! Can I get them at Hordern’s?”<|quote|>“Yes.”</|quote|>Grannie’s voice faded on my ears, my thoughts ran on uncle Jay-Jay. He had promised to be home in time for my birthday spread, and I was sure he had a present for me. What would it be?—something nice. He would be nearly sure to bring someone home with him from Cummabella, and we would have games and fun to no end. I was just seventeen, only seventeen, and had a long, long life before me wherein to enjoy myself. Oh, it was good to be alive! What a delightful place the world was!—so accommodating, I felt complete mistress of it. It was like an orange—I merely had to squeeze it and it gave forth sweets plenteously. The stream sounded far away, the sunlight blazed and danced, grannie’s voice was a pleasant murmur in my ear, the cockatoos screamed over the house and passed away to the west. Summer is heavenly and life is a joy, I reiterated. Joy! Joy! There was joy in the quit! quit! of the green-and-crimson parrots, which swung for a moment in the rose-bush over the gate, and then whizzed on into the summer day. There was joy in the gleam of the sun and in the hum of the bees, and it throbbed in my heart. Joy! Joy! A jackass laughed his joy as he perched on the telegraph wire out in the road. Joy! joy! Summer is a dream of delight and life is a joy, I said in my heart. I was repeating the one thing over and over—but ah! it was a measure of happiness which allowed of much repetition. The cool murmur of the creek grew far away, I felt my poetry books slip off my knees and fall to the floor, but I was too content to bother about them—too happy to need their consolation, which I had previously so often and so hungrily sought. Youth! Joy! Warmth! The clack of the garden gate, as it swung to, awoke me from a pleasant sleep. Grannie had left the veranda, and on the table where she had been writing aunt Helen was filling many vases with maidenhair fern and La France roses. A pleasant clatter from the dining-room announced that my birthday tea was in active preparation. The position of the yellow sunbeams at the far end of the wide veranda told that the dense shadows were lengthening, and that the last of the afternoon was wheeling westward. Taking this in, in an instant I straightened the piece of mosquito-netting, which, to protect me from the flies, someone—auntie probably—had spread across my face, and feigned to be yet asleep. By the footsteps which sounded on the stoned garden walk, I knew that Harold Beecham was one of the individuals approaching. “How do you do, Mrs Bell? Allow me to introduce my friend, Archie Goodchum. Mrs Bell, Mr Goodchum. Hasn’t it been a roaster today? Considerably over 100 degrees in the shade. Terribly hot!” Aunt Helen acknowledged the introduction, and seated her guests, saying: “Harry, have you got an artistic eye? If so, you can assist me with these flowers. So might Mr Goodchum, if he | My Brilliant Career |
“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.” | Tom | around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” | the crowd. “We don’t go around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely | you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green—” “Look around,” suggested Gatsby. “I’m looking around. I’m having a marvellous—” “You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about.” Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd. “We don’t go around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. “She’s lovely,” said Daisy. “The man | twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat. “These things excite me so,” she whispered. “If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green—” “Look around,” suggested Gatsby. “I’m looking around. I’m having a marvellous—” “You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about.” Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd. “We don’t go around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. “She’s lovely,” said Daisy. “The man bending over her is her director.” He took them ceremoniously from group to group: “Mrs. Buchanan … and Mr. Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.” “Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “not me.” But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained “the polo player” | same profusion of champagne, the same many-coloured, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy’s eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment. They arrived at twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat. “These things excite me so,” she whispered. “If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green—” “Look around,” suggested Gatsby. “I’m looking around. I’m having a marvellous—” “You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about.” Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd. “We don’t go around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. “She’s lovely,” said Daisy. “The man bending over her is her director.” He took them ceremoniously from group to group: “Mrs. Buchanan … and Mr. Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.” “Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “not me.” But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained “the polo player” for the rest of the evening. “I’ve never met so many celebrities,” Daisy exclaimed. “I liked that man—what was his name?—with the sort of blue nose.” Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. “Well, I liked him anyhow.” “I’d a little rather not be the polo player,” said Tom pleasantly, “I’d rather look at all these famous people in—in oblivion.” Daisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrot—I had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour, while at | “Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?” “She says she does want him.” “She has a big dinner party and he won’t know a soul there.” He frowned. “I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.” Suddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses. “Come on,” said Mr. Sloane to Tom, “we’re late. We’ve got to go.” And then to me: “Tell him we couldn’t wait, will you?” Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came out the front door. Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby’s party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness—it stands out in my memory from Gatsby’s other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-coloured, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy’s eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment. They arrived at twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat. “These things excite me so,” she whispered. “If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green—” “Look around,” suggested Gatsby. “I’m looking around. I’m having a marvellous—” “You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about.” Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd. “We don’t go around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. “She’s lovely,” said Daisy. “The man bending over her is her director.” He took them ceremoniously from group to group: “Mrs. Buchanan … and Mr. Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.” “Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “not me.” But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained “the polo player” for the rest of the evening. “I’ve never met so many celebrities,” Daisy exclaimed. “I liked that man—what was his name?—with the sort of blue nose.” Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. “Well, I liked him anyhow.” “I’d a little rather not be the polo player,” said Tom pleasantly, “I’d rather look at all these famous people in—in oblivion.” Daisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrot—I had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour, while at her request I remained watchfully in the garden. “In case there’s a fire or a flood,” she explained, “or any act of God.” Tom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together. “Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?” he said. “A fellow’s getting off some funny stuff.” “Go ahead,” answered Daisy genially, “and if you want to take down any addresses here’s my little gold pencil.” … She looked around after a moment and told me the girl was “common but pretty,” and I knew that except for the half-hour she’d been alone with Gatsby she wasn’t having a good time. We were at a particularly tipsy table. That was my fault—Gatsby had been called to the phone, and I’d enjoyed these same people only two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now. “How do you feel, Miss Baedeker?” The girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my shoulder. At this inquiry she sat up and opened her eyes. “Wha’?” A massive and lethargic woman, who had been urging Daisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow, spoke in Miss | was there. But he would be uneasy anyhow until he had given them something, realizing in a vague way that that was all they came for. Mr. Sloane wanted nothing. A lemonade? No, thanks. A little champagne? Nothing at all, thanks … I’m sorry— “Did you have a nice ride?” “Very good roads around here.” “I suppose the automobiles—” “Yeah.” Moved by an irresistible impulse, Gatsby turned to Tom, who had accepted the introduction as a stranger. “I believe we’ve met somewhere before, Mr. Buchanan.” “Oh, yes,” said Tom, gruffly polite, but obviously not remembering. “So we did. I remember very well.” “About two weeks ago.” “That’s right. You were with Nick here.” “I know your wife,” continued Gatsby, almost aggressively. “That so?” Tom turned to me. “You live near here, Nick?” “Next door.” “That so?” Mr. Sloane didn’t enter into the conversation, but lounged back haughtily in his chair; the woman said nothing either—until unexpectedly, after two highballs, she became cordial. “We’ll all come over to your next party, Mr. Gatsby,” she suggested. “What do you say?” “Certainly; I’d be delighted to have you.” “Be ver’ nice,” said Mr. Sloane, without gratitude. “Well—think ought to be starting home.” “Please don’t hurry,” Gatsby urged them. He had control of himself now, and he wanted to see more of Tom. “Why don’t you—why don’t you stay for supper? I wouldn’t be surprised if some other people dropped in from New York.” “You come to supper with me,” said the lady enthusiastically. “Both of you.” This included me. Mr. Sloane got to his feet. “Come along,” he said—but to her only. “I mean it,” she insisted. “I’d love to have you. Lots of room.” Gatsby looked at me questioningly. He wanted to go and he didn’t see that Mr. Sloane had determined he shouldn’t. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” I said. “Well, you come,” she urged, concentrating on Gatsby. Mr. Sloane murmured something close to her ear. “We won’t be late if we start now,” she insisted aloud. “I haven’t got a horse,” said Gatsby. “I used to ride in the army, but I’ve never bought a horse. I’ll have to follow you in my car. Excuse me for just a minute.” The rest of us walked out on the porch, where Sloane and the lady began an impassioned conversation aside. “My God, I believe the man’s coming,” said Tom. “Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?” “She says she does want him.” “She has a big dinner party and he won’t know a soul there.” He frowned. “I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.” Suddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses. “Come on,” said Mr. Sloane to Tom, “we’re late. We’ve got to go.” And then to me: “Tell him we couldn’t wait, will you?” Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came out the front door. Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby’s party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness—it stands out in my memory from Gatsby’s other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-coloured, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy’s eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment. They arrived at twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat. “These things excite me so,” she whispered. “If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green—” “Look around,” suggested Gatsby. “I’m looking around. I’m having a marvellous—” “You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about.” Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd. “We don’t go around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. “She’s lovely,” said Daisy. “The man bending over her is her director.” He took them ceremoniously from group to group: “Mrs. Buchanan … and Mr. Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.” “Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “not me.” But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained “the polo player” for the rest of the evening. “I’ve never met so many celebrities,” Daisy exclaimed. “I liked that man—what was his name?—with the sort of blue nose.” Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. “Well, I liked him anyhow.” “I’d a little rather not be the polo player,” said Tom pleasantly, “I’d rather look at all these famous people in—in oblivion.” Daisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrot—I had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour, while at her request I remained watchfully in the garden. “In case there’s a fire or a flood,” she explained, “or any act of God.” Tom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together. “Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?” he said. “A fellow’s getting off some funny stuff.” “Go ahead,” answered Daisy genially, “and if you want to take down any addresses here’s my little gold pencil.” … She looked around after a moment and told me the girl was “common but pretty,” and I knew that except for the half-hour she’d been alone with Gatsby she wasn’t having a good time. We were at a particularly tipsy table. That was my fault—Gatsby had been called to the phone, and I’d enjoyed these same people only two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now. “How do you feel, Miss Baedeker?” The girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my shoulder. At this inquiry she sat up and opened her eyes. “Wha’?” A massive and lethargic woman, who had been urging Daisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow, spoke in Miss Baedeker’s defence: “Oh, she’s all right now. When she’s had five or six cocktails she always starts screaming like that. I tell her she ought to leave it alone.” “I do leave it alone,” affirmed the accused hollowly. “We heard you yelling, so I said to Doc Civet here: ‘There’s somebody that needs your help, Doc.’ ” “She’s much obliged, I’m sure,” said another friend, without gratitude, “but you got her dress all wet when you stuck her head in the pool.” “Anything I hate is to get my head stuck in a pool,” mumbled Miss Baedeker. “They almost drowned me once over in New Jersey.” “Then you ought to leave it alone,” countered Doctor Civet. “Speak for yourself!” cried Miss Baedeker violently. “Your hand shakes. I wouldn’t let you operate on me!” It was like that. Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the moving-picture director and his Star. They were still under the white-plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek. “I like her,” said Daisy, “I think she’s lovely.” But the rest offended her—and inarguably because it wasn’t a gesture but an emotion. She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented “place” that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village—appalled by its raw vigour that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a shortcut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand. I sat on the front steps with them while they waited for their car. It was dark here in front; only the bright door sent ten square feet of light volleying out into the soft black morning. Sometimes a shadow moved against a dressing-room blind above, gave way to another shadow, an indefinite procession of shadows, who rouged and powdered in an invisible glass. “Who is this Gatsby anyhow?” demanded Tom suddenly. “Some big bootlegger?” “Where’d you hear that?” I inquired. “I didn’t hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.” “Not Gatsby,” I said shortly. He | him.” “She has a big dinner party and he won’t know a soul there.” He frowned. “I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me. They meet all kinds of crazy fish.” Suddenly Mr. Sloane and the lady walked down the steps and mounted their horses. “Come on,” said Mr. Sloane to Tom, “we’re late. We’ve got to go.” And then to me: “Tell him we couldn’t wait, will you?” Tom and I shook hands, the rest of us exchanged a cool nod, and they trotted quickly down the drive, disappearing under the August foliage just as Gatsby, with hat and light overcoat in hand, came out the front door. Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby’s party. Perhaps his presence gave the evening its peculiar quality of oppressiveness—it stands out in my memory from Gatsby’s other parties that summer. There were the same people, or at least the same sort of people, the same profusion of champagne, the same many-coloured, many-keyed commotion, but I felt an unpleasantness in the air, a pervading harshness that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy’s eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment. They arrived at twilight, and, as we strolled out among the sparkling hundreds, Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat. “These things excite me so,” she whispered. “If you want to kiss me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I’ll be glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green card. I’m giving out green—” “Look around,” suggested Gatsby. “I’m looking around. I’m having a marvellous—” “You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about.” Tom’s arrogant eyes roamed the crowd. “We don’t go around very much,” he said;<|quote|>“in fact, I was just thinking I don’t know a soul here.”</|quote|>“Perhaps you know that lady.” Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white-plum tree. Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies. “She’s lovely,” said Daisy. “The man bending over her is her director.” He took them ceremoniously from group to group: “Mrs. Buchanan … and Mr. Buchanan—” After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.” “Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “not me.” But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby for Tom remained “the polo player” for the rest of the evening. “I’ve never met so many celebrities,” Daisy exclaimed. “I liked that man—what was his name?—with the sort of blue nose.” Gatsby identified him, adding that he was a small producer. “Well, I liked him anyhow.” “I’d a little rather not be the polo player,” said Tom pleasantly, “I’d rather look at all these famous people in—in oblivion.” Daisy and Gatsby danced. I remember being surprised by his graceful, conservative foxtrot—I had never seen him dance before. Then they sauntered over to my house and sat on the steps for half an hour, while at her request I remained watchfully in the garden. “In case there’s a fire or a flood,” she explained, “or any act of God.” Tom appeared from his oblivion as we were sitting down to supper together. “Do you mind if I eat with some people over here?” he said. “A fellow’s getting off some funny stuff.” “Go ahead,” answered Daisy genially, “and if you want to take down any addresses here’s my little gold pencil.” … She looked around after a moment and told me the girl was “common but pretty,” and I knew that except for the half-hour she’d been alone with Gatsby she wasn’t having a good time. We were at a particularly tipsy table. That was my fault—Gatsby had been called to the phone, and I’d enjoyed these same people only two weeks before. But what had amused me then turned septic on the air now. “How do you feel, Miss Baedeker?” The girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my shoulder. At this inquiry she sat up and opened her eyes. “Wha’?” A massive and lethargic woman, who had been urging Daisy to play golf with her at the local club tomorrow, spoke in Miss Baedeker’s defence: “Oh, she’s all right now. When she’s had five or six cocktails she always starts screaming like that. I tell her she ought to leave it alone.” “I do leave it alone,” affirmed the accused hollowly. “We heard you yelling, so I said to | The Great Gatsby |
He shook his head sadly. | No speaker | of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said | with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate | But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case." "Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you | state the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case." "Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid." "But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper with the facts." "Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the | most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world." "The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths which, by the way, is their normal state the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case." "Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid." "But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper with the facts." "Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it." I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, | He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment." "But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable." He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation. "My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world." "The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths which, by the way, is their normal state the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case." "Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid." "But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper with the facts." "Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it." I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather. "My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes, after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted last week by Fran ois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance." He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-ma tres," and "tours-de-force," all | Chapter I The Science of Deduction Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with a long sigh of satisfaction. Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to day I had become more irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him. Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer. "Which is it to-day?" I asked, "morphine or cocaine?" He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. "It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent. solution. Would you care to try it?" "No, indeed," I answered, brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it." He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment." "But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable." He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation. "My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world." "The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths which, by the way, is their normal state the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case." "Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid." "But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper with the facts." "Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it." I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather. "My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes, after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted last week by Fran ois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance." He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-ma tres," and "tours-de-force," all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman. "He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I. "Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes, lightly. "He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into French." "Your works?" "Oh, didn t you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes. In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of cigar-, cigarette-, and pipe-tobacco, with coloured plates illustrating the difference in the ash. It is a point which is continually turning up in criminal trials, and which is sometimes of supreme importance as a clue. If you can say definitely, for example, that some murder has been done by a man who was smoking an Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of search. To the trained eye there is as much difference between the black ash of a Trichinopoly and the white fluff of bird s-eye as there is between a cabbage and a potato." "You have an extraordinary genius for minuti ," I remarked. "I appreciate their importance. Here is my monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little work upon the influence of a trade upon the form of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, sailors, corkcutters, compositors, weavers, and diamond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical interest to the scientific detective, especially in cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with my hobby." "Not at all," I answered, earnestly. "It is of the greatest interest to me, especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical application of it. But you spoke just now of observation and deduction. Surely the one to some extent implies the other." "Why, hardly," he answered, leaning back luxuriously in his arm-chair, and sending up thick blue wreaths from his pipe. "For example, observation shows me that you have been to | his many extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him. Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer. "Which is it to-day?" I asked, "morphine or cocaine?" He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. "It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent. solution. Would you care to try it?" "No, indeed," I answered, brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it." He smiled at my vehemence. "Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment." "But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable." He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation. "My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world." "The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths which, by the way, is their normal state the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case." "Yes, indeed," said I, cordially. "I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of A Study in Scarlet."<|quote|>He shook his head sadly.</|quote|>"I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid." "But the romance was there," I remonstrated. "I could not tamper with the facts." "Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it." I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings. More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg. I had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and, though it did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every change of the weather. "My practice has extended recently to the Continent," said Holmes, after a while, filling up his old brier-root pipe. "I was consulted last week by Fran ois Le Villard, who, as you probably know, has come rather to the front lately in the French detective service. He has all the Celtic power of quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher developments of his art. The case was concerned with a will, and possessed some features of interest. I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance." He tossed over, as he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign notepaper. I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion of notes of admiration, with stray "magnifiques," "coup-de-ma tres," and "tours-de-force," all testifying to the ardent admiration of the Frenchman. "He speaks as a pupil to his master," said I. "Oh, he rates my assistance too highly," said Sherlock Holmes, lightly. "He has considerable gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has the power of observation and that of deduction. He is only wanting in knowledge; and that may come in time. He is now translating my small works into French." "Your works?" "Oh, didn t you know?" he cried, laughing. "Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for example, is one Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes. In it I enumerate a hundred and forty | The Sign Of The Four |
"Where?" | Noah Claypole | asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's | "When could I see him?" asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's the wages?" "Live like a | get rid of," retorted Fagin. "Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market." "When could I see him?" asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's the wages?" "Live like a gentleman board and lodging, pipes and spirits free half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns," replied Mr. Fagin. Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to | didn't run rather short of assistants just now," replied Fagin. "Should I have to hand over?" said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. "It couldn't possibly be done without," replied Fagin, in a most decided manner. "Twenty pound, though it's a lot of money!" "Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of," retorted Fagin. "Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market." "When could I see him?" asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's the wages?" "Live like a gentleman board and lodging, pipes and spirits free half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns," replied Mr. Fagin. Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually | I wasn't, I shouldn't be here," replied Noah. "But, I say, she'll be back if yer lose time." "Now, what do you think?" said Fagin. "If you was to like my friend, could you do better than join him?" "Is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!" responded Noah, winking one of his little eyes. "The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best society in the profession." "Regular town-maders?" asked Mr. Claypole. "Not a countryman among 'em; and I don't think he'd take you, even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now," replied Fagin. "Should I have to hand over?" said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. "It couldn't possibly be done without," replied Fagin, in a most decided manner. "Twenty pound, though it's a lot of money!" "Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of," retorted Fagin. "Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market." "When could I see him?" asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's the wages?" "Live like a gentleman board and lodging, pipes and spirits free half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns," replied Mr. Fagin. Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him. "But, yer see," observed Noah, "as she will be able to do a good deal, I should like to take something very light." "A little fancy work?" suggested Fagin. "Ah! something of that sort," replied Noah. "What do you think would suit me now? Something not too trying for the strength, and not very dangerous, you know. That's the sort of thing!" "I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my dear," said Fagin. "My friend wants somebody who would do that well, very much." "Why, | reassured the girl, by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements. "I have got a friend that I think can gratify your darling wish, and put you in the right way, where you can take whatever department of the business you think will suit you best at first, and be taught all the others." "Yer speak as if yer were in earnest," replied Noah. "What advantage would it be to me to be anything else?" inquired Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. "Here! Let me have a word with you outside." "There's no occasion to trouble ourselves to move," said Noah, getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again. "She'll take the luggage upstairs the while. Charlotte, see to them bundles." This mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was obeyed without the slightest demur; and Charlotte made the best of her way off with the packages while Noah held the door open and watched her out. "She's kept tolerably well under, ain't she?" he asked as he resumed his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal. "Quite perfect," rejoined Fagin, clapping him on the shoulder. "You're a genius, my dear." "Why, I suppose if I wasn't, I shouldn't be here," replied Noah. "But, I say, she'll be back if yer lose time." "Now, what do you think?" said Fagin. "If you was to like my friend, could you do better than join him?" "Is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!" responded Noah, winking one of his little eyes. "The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best society in the profession." "Regular town-maders?" asked Mr. Claypole. "Not a countryman among 'em; and I don't think he'd take you, even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now," replied Fagin. "Should I have to hand over?" said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. "It couldn't possibly be done without," replied Fagin, in a most decided manner. "Twenty pound, though it's a lot of money!" "Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of," retorted Fagin. "Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market." "When could I see him?" asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's the wages?" "Live like a gentleman board and lodging, pipes and spirits free half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns," replied Mr. Fagin. Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him. "But, yer see," observed Noah, "as she will be able to do a good deal, I should like to take something very light." "A little fancy work?" suggested Fagin. "Ah! something of that sort," replied Noah. "What do you think would suit me now? Something not too trying for the strength, and not very dangerous, you know. That's the sort of thing!" "I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my dear," said Fagin. "My friend wants somebody who would do that well, very much." "Why, I did mention that, and I shouldn't mind turning my hand to it sometimes," rejoined Mr. Claypole slowly; "but it wouldn't pay by itself, you know." "That's true!" observed the Jew, ruminating or pretending to ruminate. "No, it might not." "What do you think, then?" asked Noah, anxiously regarding him. "Something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and not much more risk than being at home." "What do you think of the old ladies?" asked Fagin. "There's a good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and running round the corner." "Don't they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?" asked Noah, shaking his head. "I don't think that would answer my purpose. Ain't there any other line open?" "Stop!" said Fagin, laying his hand on Noah's knee. "The kinchin lay." "What's that?" demanded Mr. Claypole. "The kinchins, my dear," said Fagin, "is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and shillings; and the lay is just to take their money away they've always got it ready in their hands, then knock 'em into the kennel, and walk off very slow, as if there were nothing else | to a confidential whisper; "and that's the truth." Fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose with his right forefinger, a gesture which Noah attempted to imitate, though not with complete success, in consequence of his own nose not being large enough for the purpose. However, Mr. Fagin seemed to interpret the endeavour as expressing a perfect coincidence with his opinion, and put about the liquor which Barney reappeared with, in a very friendly manner. "Good stuff that," observed Mr. Claypole, smacking his lips. "Dear!" said Fagin. "A man need be always emptying a till, or a pocket, or a woman's reticule, or a house, or a mail-coach, or a bank, if he drinks it regularly." Mr. Claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks than he fell back in his chair, and looked from the Jew to Charlotte with a countenance of ashy paleness and excessive terror. "Don't mind me, my dear," said Fagin, drawing his chair closer. "Ha! ha! it was lucky it was only me that heard you by chance. It was very lucky it was only me." "I didn't take it," stammered Noah, no longer stretching out his legs like an independent gentleman, but coiling them up as well as he could under his chair; "it was all her doing; yer've got it now, Charlotte, yer know yer have." "No matter who's got it, or who did it, my dear," replied Fagin, glancing, nevertheless, with a hawk's eye at the girl and the two bundles. "I'm in that way myself, and I like you for it." "In what way?" asked Mr. Claypole, a little recovering. "In that way of business," rejoined Fagin; "and so are the people of the house. You've hit the right nail upon the head, and are as safe here as you could be. There is not a safer place in all this town than is the Cripples; that is, when I like to make it so. And I have taken a fancy to you and the young woman; so I've said the word, and you may make your minds easy." Noah Claypole's mind might have been at ease after this assurance, but his body certainly was not; for he shuffled and writhed about, into various uncouth positions: eyeing his new friend meanwhile with mingled fear and suspicion. "I'll tell you more," said Fagin, after he had reassured the girl, by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements. "I have got a friend that I think can gratify your darling wish, and put you in the right way, where you can take whatever department of the business you think will suit you best at first, and be taught all the others." "Yer speak as if yer were in earnest," replied Noah. "What advantage would it be to me to be anything else?" inquired Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. "Here! Let me have a word with you outside." "There's no occasion to trouble ourselves to move," said Noah, getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again. "She'll take the luggage upstairs the while. Charlotte, see to them bundles." This mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was obeyed without the slightest demur; and Charlotte made the best of her way off with the packages while Noah held the door open and watched her out. "She's kept tolerably well under, ain't she?" he asked as he resumed his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal. "Quite perfect," rejoined Fagin, clapping him on the shoulder. "You're a genius, my dear." "Why, I suppose if I wasn't, I shouldn't be here," replied Noah. "But, I say, she'll be back if yer lose time." "Now, what do you think?" said Fagin. "If you was to like my friend, could you do better than join him?" "Is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!" responded Noah, winking one of his little eyes. "The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best society in the profession." "Regular town-maders?" asked Mr. Claypole. "Not a countryman among 'em; and I don't think he'd take you, even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now," replied Fagin. "Should I have to hand over?" said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. "It couldn't possibly be done without," replied Fagin, in a most decided manner. "Twenty pound, though it's a lot of money!" "Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of," retorted Fagin. "Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market." "When could I see him?" asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's the wages?" "Live like a gentleman board and lodging, pipes and spirits free half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns," replied Mr. Fagin. Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him. "But, yer see," observed Noah, "as she will be able to do a good deal, I should like to take something very light." "A little fancy work?" suggested Fagin. "Ah! something of that sort," replied Noah. "What do you think would suit me now? Something not too trying for the strength, and not very dangerous, you know. That's the sort of thing!" "I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my dear," said Fagin. "My friend wants somebody who would do that well, very much." "Why, I did mention that, and I shouldn't mind turning my hand to it sometimes," rejoined Mr. Claypole slowly; "but it wouldn't pay by itself, you know." "That's true!" observed the Jew, ruminating or pretending to ruminate. "No, it might not." "What do you think, then?" asked Noah, anxiously regarding him. "Something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and not much more risk than being at home." "What do you think of the old ladies?" asked Fagin. "There's a good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and running round the corner." "Don't they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?" asked Noah, shaking his head. "I don't think that would answer my purpose. Ain't there any other line open?" "Stop!" said Fagin, laying his hand on Noah's knee. "The kinchin lay." "What's that?" demanded Mr. Claypole. "The kinchins, my dear," said Fagin, "is the young children that's sent on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and shillings; and the lay is just to take their money away they've always got it ready in their hands, then knock 'em into the kennel, and walk off very slow, as if there were nothing else the matter but a child fallen down and hurt itself. Ha! ha! ha!" "Ha! ha!" roared Mr. Claypole, kicking up his legs in an ecstasy. "Lord, that's the very thing!" "To be sure it is," replied Fagin; "and you can have a few good beats chalked out in Camden Town, and Battle Bridge, and neighborhoods like that, where they're always going errands; and you can upset as many kinchins as you want, any hour in the day. Ha! ha! ha!" With this, Fagin poked Mr. Claypole in the side, and they joined in a burst of laughter both long and loud. "Well, that's all right!" said Noah, when he had recovered himself, and Charlotte had returned. "What time to-morrow shall we say?" "Will ten do?" asked Fagin, adding, as Mr. Claypole nodded assent, "What name shall I tell my good friend." "Mr. Bolter," replied Noah, who had prepared himself for such emergency. "Mr. Morris Bolter. This is Mrs. Bolter." "Mrs. Bolter's humble servant," said Fagin, bowing with grotesque politeness. "I hope I shall know her better very shortly." "Do you hear the gentleman, Charlotte?" thundered Mr. Claypole. "Yes, Noah, dear!" replied Mrs. Bolter, extending her hand. "She calls me Noah, as a sort of fond way of talking," said Mr. Morris Bolter, late Claypole, turning to Fagin. "You understand?" "Oh yes, I understand perfectly," replied Fagin, telling the truth for once. "Good-night! Good-night!" With many adieus and good wishes, Mr. Fagin went his way. Noah Claypole, bespeaking his good lady's attention, proceeded to enlighten her relative to the arrangement he had made, with all that haughtiness and air of superiority, becoming, not only a member of the sterner sex, but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on the kinchin lay, in London and its vicinity. CHAPTER XLIII. WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE "And so it was you that was your own friend, was it?" asked Mr. Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into between them, he had removed next day to Fagin's house. "Cod, I thought as much last night!" "Every man's his own friend, my dear," replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. "He hasn't as good a one as himself anywhere." "Except sometimes," replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. "Some people are nobody's enemies but their own, yer know." | you and the young woman; so I've said the word, and you may make your minds easy." Noah Claypole's mind might have been at ease after this assurance, but his body certainly was not; for he shuffled and writhed about, into various uncouth positions: eyeing his new friend meanwhile with mingled fear and suspicion. "I'll tell you more," said Fagin, after he had reassured the girl, by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements. "I have got a friend that I think can gratify your darling wish, and put you in the right way, where you can take whatever department of the business you think will suit you best at first, and be taught all the others." "Yer speak as if yer were in earnest," replied Noah. "What advantage would it be to me to be anything else?" inquired Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. "Here! Let me have a word with you outside." "There's no occasion to trouble ourselves to move," said Noah, getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again. "She'll take the luggage upstairs the while. Charlotte, see to them bundles." This mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was obeyed without the slightest demur; and Charlotte made the best of her way off with the packages while Noah held the door open and watched her out. "She's kept tolerably well under, ain't she?" he asked as he resumed his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild animal. "Quite perfect," rejoined Fagin, clapping him on the shoulder. "You're a genius, my dear." "Why, I suppose if I wasn't, I shouldn't be here," replied Noah. "But, I say, she'll be back if yer lose time." "Now, what do you think?" said Fagin. "If you was to like my friend, could you do better than join him?" "Is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!" responded Noah, winking one of his little eyes. "The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very best society in the profession." "Regular town-maders?" asked Mr. Claypole. "Not a countryman among 'em; and I don't think he'd take you, even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of assistants just now," replied Fagin. "Should I have to hand over?" said Noah, slapping his breeches-pocket. "It couldn't possibly be done without," replied Fagin, in a most decided manner. "Twenty pound, though it's a lot of money!" "Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of," retorted Fagin. "Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah! It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market." "When could I see him?" asked Noah doubtfully. "To-morrow morning."<|quote|>"Where?"</|quote|>"Here." "Um!" said Noah. "What's the wages?" "Live like a gentleman board and lodging, pipes and spirits free half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns," replied Mr. Fagin. Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought that would suit him. "But, yer see," observed Noah, "as she will be able to do a good deal, I should like to take something very light." "A little fancy work?" suggested Fagin. "Ah! something of that sort," replied Noah. "What do you think would suit me now? Something not too trying for the strength, and not very dangerous, you know. That's the sort of thing!" "I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others, my dear," said Fagin. "My friend wants somebody who would do that well, very much." "Why, I did mention that, and I shouldn't mind turning my hand to it sometimes," rejoined Mr. Claypole slowly; "but it wouldn't pay by itself, you know." "That's true!" observed the Jew, ruminating or pretending to ruminate. "No, it might not." "What do you think, then?" asked Noah, anxiously regarding him. "Something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and not much more risk than being at home." "What do you think of the old ladies?" asked Fagin. "There's a good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and running round the corner." "Don't they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?" asked Noah, shaking his head. "I don't think that would answer my purpose. Ain't there any other line open?" "Stop!" said Fagin, laying his hand on Noah's knee. "The kinchin lay." "What's that?" demanded Mr. Claypole. "The kinchins, my dear," said Fagin, "is the | Oliver Twist |
But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her. | No speaker | to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, | "we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I | of its being "very cold, certainly very cold," and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour of the evening. "You do quite right," said she;--" "we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I had got him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining out--a dinner engagement is | not liking to resist any advice of her's, he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma, too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with his muttering acknowledgment of its being "very cold, certainly very cold," and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour of the evening. "You do quite right," said she;--" "we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I had got him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse | so great a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton, in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night." Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make; which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her's, he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma, too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with his muttering acknowledgment of its being "very cold, certainly very cold," and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour of the evening. "You do quite right," said she;--" "we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I had got him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her." Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting her again, when he | Mrs. Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore-throats, and had often alarmed her with them." Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as he exclaimed, "A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks. Why does not Perry see her?" Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard's experience and care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject, "It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton, in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night." Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make; which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her's, he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma, too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with his muttering acknowledgment of its being "very cold, certainly very cold," and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour of the evening. "You do quite right," said she;--" "we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I had got him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her." Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of approbation much in his favour. After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began with-- "I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr. Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works." "Mr. Elton's manners are not perfect," replied Emma; "but where there is a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect good-temper and good-will in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value." "Yes," said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, "he seems to have a great deal of good-will towards you." "Me!" she replied with a smile of astonishment, "are you imagining me to be Mr. Elton's object?" "Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never occurred to you before, | occupy Emma long to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for Harriet also. Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the only persons invited to meet them;--the hours were to be early, as well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse's habits and inclination being consulted in every thing. The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December) had been spent by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs. Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat: Mrs. Goddard was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss without many tears. Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard's unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr. Elton's would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard's door, when she was met by Mr. Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly together in conversation about the invalid--of whom he, on the rumour of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might carry some report of her to Hartfield--they were overtaken by Mr. John Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend's complaint;--"a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat about her, a quick, low pulse, &c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs. Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore-throats, and had often alarmed her with them." Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as he exclaimed, "A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks. Why does not Perry see her?" Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard's experience and care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject, "It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton, in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night." Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make; which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her's, he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma, too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with his muttering acknowledgment of its being "very cold, certainly very cold," and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour of the evening. "You do quite right," said she;--" "we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I had got him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her." Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of approbation much in his favour. After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began with-- "I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr. Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works." "Mr. Elton's manners are not perfect," replied Emma; "but where there is a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect good-temper and good-will in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value." "Yes," said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, "he seems to have a great deal of good-will towards you." "Me!" she replied with a smile of astonishment, "are you imagining me to be Mr. Elton's object?" "Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now." "Mr. Elton in love with me!--What an idea!" "I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do." "I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and I are very good friends, and nothing more;" and she walked on, amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in want of counsel. He said no more. Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe; and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world in a very short time. Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least, which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like; he anticipated nothing in the visit that could be at all worth the purchase; and the whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his discontent. "A man," said he, "must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for | sore-throats, and had often alarmed her with them." Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as he exclaimed, "A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks. Why does not Perry see her?" Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard's experience and care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject, "It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton, in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night." Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make; which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her's, he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma, too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with his muttering acknowledgment of its being "very cold, certainly very cold," and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour of the evening. "You do quite right," said she;--" "we will make your apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Weston."<|quote|>But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when he next looked at her.</|quote|>"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I had got him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men, especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her." Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of approbation much in his favour. After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began with-- "I never in my life saw a man more intent | Emma |
he exclaimed. | No speaker | for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly | "would you order a carriage for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?" "Why, of | Philip, that the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening." "Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him." "And order a carriage to take us to the evening train." "And please," said Miss Abbott, "would you order a carriage for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?" "Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. Two carriages for the evening train." He looked at his sister hopelessly. "Harriet, whatever are you up to? We shall never be ready." "Order my carriage for the evening train," said Harriet, | manner, "it s too hot for this. We ve been talking and interviewing each other all the morning, and I have another interview this afternoon. I do stipulate for silence. Let each lady retire to her bedroom with a book." "I retire to pack," said Harriet. "Please remind Signor Carella, Philip, that the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening." "Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him." "And order a carriage to take us to the evening train." "And please," said Miss Abbott, "would you order a carriage for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?" "Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. Two carriages for the evening train." He looked at his sister hopelessly. "Harriet, whatever are you up to? We shall never be ready." "Order my carriage for the evening train," said Harriet, and departed. "Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview with Signor Carella." Miss Abbott gave a little sigh. "But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have the slightest influence over him?" "No. But--I can t repeat all that I said in | policies were exactly the same when they left the church as when they had entered it. Harriet was rude at lunch. She called Miss Abbott a turncoat and a coward to her face. Miss Abbott resented neither epithet, feeling that one was justified and the other not unreasonable. She tried to avoid even the suspicion of satire in her replies. But Harriet was sure that she was satirical because she was so calm. She got more and more violent, and Philip at one time feared that she would come to blows. "Look here!" he cried, with something of the old manner, "it s too hot for this. We ve been talking and interviewing each other all the morning, and I have another interview this afternoon. I do stipulate for silence. Let each lady retire to her bedroom with a book." "I retire to pack," said Harriet. "Please remind Signor Carella, Philip, that the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening." "Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him." "And order a carriage to take us to the evening train." "And please," said Miss Abbott, "would you order a carriage for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?" "Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. Two carriages for the evening train." He looked at his sister hopelessly. "Harriet, whatever are you up to? We shall never be ready." "Order my carriage for the evening train," said Harriet, and departed. "Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview with Signor Carella." Miss Abbott gave a little sigh. "But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have the slightest influence over him?" "No. But--I can t repeat all that I said in the church. You ought never to see him again. You ought to bundle Harriet into a carriage, not this evening, but now, and drive her straight away." "Perhaps I ought. But it isn t a very big ought. Whatever Harriet and I do the issue is the same. Why, I can see the splendour of it--even the humour. Gino sitting up here on the mountain-top with his cub. We come and ask for it. He welcomes us. We ask for it again. He is equally pleasant. I m agreeable to spend the whole week bargaining with him. But I know | I shall return an honourable failure. I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, talking to you now--I don t suppose I shall ever meet anything greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it--and I m sure I can t tell you whether the fate s good or evil. I don t die--I don t fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I m just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which--thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you--is now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been before." She said solemnly, "I wish something would happen to you, my dear friend; I wish something would happen to you." "But why?" he asked, smiling. "Prove to me why I don t do as I am." She also smiled, very gravely. She could not prove it. No argument existed. Their discourse, splendid as it had been, resulted in nothing, and their respective opinions and policies were exactly the same when they left the church as when they had entered it. Harriet was rude at lunch. She called Miss Abbott a turncoat and a coward to her face. Miss Abbott resented neither epithet, feeling that one was justified and the other not unreasonable. She tried to avoid even the suspicion of satire in her replies. But Harriet was sure that she was satirical because she was so calm. She got more and more violent, and Philip at one time feared that she would come to blows. "Look here!" he cried, with something of the old manner, "it s too hot for this. We ve been talking and interviewing each other all the morning, and I have another interview this afternoon. I do stipulate for silence. Let each lady retire to her bedroom with a book." "I retire to pack," said Harriet. "Please remind Signor Carella, Philip, that the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening." "Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him." "And order a carriage to take us to the evening train." "And please," said Miss Abbott, "would you order a carriage for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?" "Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. Two carriages for the evening train." He looked at his sister hopelessly. "Harriet, whatever are you up to? We shall never be ready." "Order my carriage for the evening train," said Harriet, and departed. "Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview with Signor Carella." Miss Abbott gave a little sigh. "But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have the slightest influence over him?" "No. But--I can t repeat all that I said in the church. You ought never to see him again. You ought to bundle Harriet into a carriage, not this evening, but now, and drive her straight away." "Perhaps I ought. But it isn t a very big ought. Whatever Harriet and I do the issue is the same. Why, I can see the splendour of it--even the humour. Gino sitting up here on the mountain-top with his cub. We come and ask for it. He welcomes us. We ask for it again. He is equally pleasant. I m agreeable to spend the whole week bargaining with him. But I know that at the end of it I shall descend empty-handed to the plains. It might be finer of me to make up my mind. But I m not a fine character. And nothing hangs on it." "Perhaps I am extreme," she said humbly. "I ve been trying to run you, just like your mother. I feel you ought to fight it out with Harriet. Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing that nothing hangs on it, it sounds like blasphemy. There s never any knowing--(how am I to put it?)--which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won t have things hanging on it for ever." He assented, but her remark had only an aesthetic value. He was not prepared to take it to his heart. All the afternoon he rested--worried, but not exactly despondent. The thing would jog out somehow. Probably Miss Abbott was right. The baby had better stop where it was loved. And that, probably, was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest in the matter, and he was sure that he had no influence. It was not surprising, therefore, that the interview at | home. Why, Miss Abbott, you can t expect me to follow you through all these turns--" "I don t! But I do expect you to settle what is right and to follow that. Do you want the child to stop with his father, who loves him and will bring him up badly, or do you want him to come to Sawston, where no one loves him, but where he will be brought up well? There is the question put dispassionately enough even for you. Settle it. Settle which side you ll fight on. But don t go talking about an honourable failure, which means simply not thinking and not acting at all." "Because I understand the position of Signor Carella and of you, it s no reason that--" "None at all. Fight as if you think us wrong. Oh, what s the use of your fair-mindedness if you never decide for yourself? Any one gets hold of you and makes you do what they want. And you see through them and laugh at them--and do it. It s not enough to see clearly; I m muddle-headed and stupid, and not worth a quarter of you, but I have tried to do what seemed right at the time. And you--your brain and your insight are splendid. But when you see what s right you re too idle to do it. You told me once that we shall be judged by our intentions, not by our accomplishments. I thought it a grand remark. But we must intend to accomplish--not sit intending on a chair." "You are wonderful!" he said gravely. "Oh, you appreciate me!" she burst out again. "I wish you didn t. You appreciate us all--see good in all of us. And all the time you are dead--dead--dead. Look, why aren t you angry?" She came up to him, and then her mood suddenly changed, and she took hold of both his hands. "You are so splendid, Mr. Herriton, that I can t bear to see you wasted. I can t bear--she has not been good to you--your mother." "Miss Abbott, don t worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I m one of them; I never did anything at school or at the Bar. I came out to stop Lilia s marriage, and it was too late. I came out intending to get the baby, and I shall return an honourable failure. I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, talking to you now--I don t suppose I shall ever meet anything greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it--and I m sure I can t tell you whether the fate s good or evil. I don t die--I don t fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I m just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which--thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you--is now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been before." She said solemnly, "I wish something would happen to you, my dear friend; I wish something would happen to you." "But why?" he asked, smiling. "Prove to me why I don t do as I am." She also smiled, very gravely. She could not prove it. No argument existed. Their discourse, splendid as it had been, resulted in nothing, and their respective opinions and policies were exactly the same when they left the church as when they had entered it. Harriet was rude at lunch. She called Miss Abbott a turncoat and a coward to her face. Miss Abbott resented neither epithet, feeling that one was justified and the other not unreasonable. She tried to avoid even the suspicion of satire in her replies. But Harriet was sure that she was satirical because she was so calm. She got more and more violent, and Philip at one time feared that she would come to blows. "Look here!" he cried, with something of the old manner, "it s too hot for this. We ve been talking and interviewing each other all the morning, and I have another interview this afternoon. I do stipulate for silence. Let each lady retire to her bedroom with a book." "I retire to pack," said Harriet. "Please remind Signor Carella, Philip, that the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening." "Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him." "And order a carriage to take us to the evening train." "And please," said Miss Abbott, "would you order a carriage for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?" "Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. Two carriages for the evening train." He looked at his sister hopelessly. "Harriet, whatever are you up to? We shall never be ready." "Order my carriage for the evening train," said Harriet, and departed. "Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview with Signor Carella." Miss Abbott gave a little sigh. "But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have the slightest influence over him?" "No. But--I can t repeat all that I said in the church. You ought never to see him again. You ought to bundle Harriet into a carriage, not this evening, but now, and drive her straight away." "Perhaps I ought. But it isn t a very big ought. Whatever Harriet and I do the issue is the same. Why, I can see the splendour of it--even the humour. Gino sitting up here on the mountain-top with his cub. We come and ask for it. He welcomes us. We ask for it again. He is equally pleasant. I m agreeable to spend the whole week bargaining with him. But I know that at the end of it I shall descend empty-handed to the plains. It might be finer of me to make up my mind. But I m not a fine character. And nothing hangs on it." "Perhaps I am extreme," she said humbly. "I ve been trying to run you, just like your mother. I feel you ought to fight it out with Harriet. Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing that nothing hangs on it, it sounds like blasphemy. There s never any knowing--(how am I to put it?)--which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won t have things hanging on it for ever." He assented, but her remark had only an aesthetic value. He was not prepared to take it to his heart. All the afternoon he rested--worried, but not exactly despondent. The thing would jog out somehow. Probably Miss Abbott was right. The baby had better stop where it was loved. And that, probably, was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest in the matter, and he was sure that he had no influence. It was not surprising, therefore, that the interview at the Caffe Garibaldi came to nothing. Neither of them took it very seriously. And before long Gino had discovered how things lay, and was ragging his companion hopelessly. Philip tried to look offended, but in the end he had to laugh. "Well, you are right," he said. "This affair is being managed by the ladies." "Ah, the ladies--the ladies!" cried the other, and then he roared like a millionaire for two cups of black coffee, and insisted on treating his friend, as a sign that their strife was over. "Well, I have done my best," said Philip, dipping a long slice of sugar into his cup, and watching the brown liquid ascend into it. "I shall face my mother with a good conscience. Will you bear me witness that I ve done my best?" "My poor fellow, I will!" He laid a sympathetic hand on Philip s knee. "And that I have--" The sugar was now impregnated with coffee, and he bent forward to swallow it. As he did so his eyes swept the opposite of the Piazza, and he saw there, watching them, Harriet. "Mia sorella!" he exclaimed. Gino, much amused, laid his hand upon the little table, and beat the marble humorously with his fists. Harriet turned away and began gloomily to inspect the Palazzo Pubblico. "Poor Harriet!" said Philip, swallowing the sugar. "One more wrench and it will all be over for her; we are leaving this evening." Gino was sorry for this. "Then you will not be here this evening as you promised us. All three leaving?" "All three," said Philip, who had not revealed the secession of Miss Abbott; "by the night train; at least, that is my sister s plan. So I m afraid I shan t be here." They watched the departing figure of Harriet, and then entered upon the final civilities. They shook each other warmly by both hands. Philip was to come again next year, and to write beforehand. He was to be introduced to Gino s wife, for he was told of the marriage now. He was to be godfather to his next baby. As for Gino, he would remember some time that Philip liked vermouth. He begged him to give his love to Irma. Mrs. Herriton--should he send her his sympathetic regards? No; perhaps that would hardly do. So the two young men parted with a good deal of | anything at school or at the Bar. I came out to stop Lilia s marriage, and it was too late. I came out intending to get the baby, and I shall return an honourable failure. I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, talking to you now--I don t suppose I shall ever meet anything greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it--and I m sure I can t tell you whether the fate s good or evil. I don t die--I don t fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love they always do it when I m just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which--thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you--is now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been before." She said solemnly, "I wish something would happen to you, my dear friend; I wish something would happen to you." "But why?" he asked, smiling. "Prove to me why I don t do as I am." She also smiled, very gravely. She could not prove it. No argument existed. Their discourse, splendid as it had been, resulted in nothing, and their respective opinions and policies were exactly the same when they left the church as when they had entered it. Harriet was rude at lunch. She called Miss Abbott a turncoat and a coward to her face. Miss Abbott resented neither epithet, feeling that one was justified and the other not unreasonable. She tried to avoid even the suspicion of satire in her replies. But Harriet was sure that she was satirical because she was so calm. She got more and more violent, and Philip at one time feared that she would come to blows. "Look here!" he cried, with something of the old manner, "it s too hot for this. We ve been talking and interviewing each other all the morning, and I have another interview this afternoon. I do stipulate for silence. Let each lady retire to her bedroom with a book." "I retire to pack," said Harriet. "Please remind Signor Carella, Philip, that the baby is to be here by half-past eight this evening." "Oh, certainly, Harriet. I shall make a point of reminding him." "And order a carriage to take us to the evening train." "And please," said Miss Abbott, "would you order a carriage for me too?" "You going?"<|quote|>he exclaimed.</|quote|>"Of course," she replied, suddenly flushing. "Why not?" "Why, of course you would be going. Two carriages, then. Two carriages for the evening train." He looked at his sister hopelessly. "Harriet, whatever are you up to? We shall never be ready." "Order my carriage for the evening train," said Harriet, and departed. "Well, I suppose I shall. And I shall also have my interview with Signor Carella." Miss Abbott gave a little sigh. "But why should you mind? Do you suppose that I shall have the slightest influence over him?" "No. But--I can t repeat all that I said in the church. You ought never to see him again. You ought to bundle Harriet into a carriage, not this evening, but now, and drive her straight away." "Perhaps I ought. But it isn t a very big ought. Whatever Harriet and I do the issue is the same. Why, I can see the splendour of it--even the humour. Gino sitting up here on the mountain-top with his cub. We come and ask for it. He welcomes us. We ask for it again. He is equally pleasant. I m agreeable to spend the whole week bargaining with him. But I know that at the end of it I shall descend empty-handed to the plains. It might be finer of me to make up my mind. But I m not a fine character. And nothing hangs on it." "Perhaps I am extreme," she said humbly. "I ve been trying to run you, just like your mother. I feel you ought to fight it out with Harriet. Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing that nothing hangs on it, it sounds like blasphemy. There s never any knowing--(how am I to put it?)--which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won t have things hanging on it for ever." He assented, but her remark had only an aesthetic value. He was not prepared to take it to his heart. All the afternoon he rested--worried, but not exactly despondent. The thing would jog out somehow. Probably Miss Abbott was right. The baby had better stop where it was loved. And that, probably, was what the fates had decreed. He felt little interest in the matter, and he was sure that he had no influence. It was not surprising, therefore, that the interview at the Caffe Garibaldi came to nothing. Neither of them took it very seriously. And before long Gino had discovered how things lay, and was ragging his companion hopelessly. Philip tried to look offended, but in the end he had to laugh. "Well, you are right," he said. "This affair is being managed by the ladies." "Ah, the ladies--the ladies!" cried the other, and then he roared like a millionaire for two cups of black coffee, and insisted on treating his friend, as a sign that their strife was over. "Well, I have done my best," said Philip, dipping a long slice of sugar into his cup, and watching the brown liquid ascend into it. "I shall face my mother with a good conscience. Will you bear me witness that I ve done my best?" "My poor fellow, I will!" He laid a sympathetic hand on Philip s knee. "And that I have--" The sugar was now impregnated with coffee, and he bent forward to swallow it. As he did so his eyes swept the opposite of the Piazza, and he saw there, watching them, Harriet. "Mia sorella!" he exclaimed. Gino, | Where Angels Fear To Tread |
"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him." | Lucy Steele | with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing | exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after | however, is of many years date. He was under my uncle s care, you know, a considerable while." "Your uncle!" "Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?" "I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after a moment s reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward s honour and love, and her companion s falsehood "Engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars! I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me, that really I beg | surprise and solicitude "May I ask if your engagement is of long standing?" "We have been engaged these four years." "Four years!" "Yes." Elinor, though greatly shocked, still felt unable to believe it. "I did not know," said she, "that you were even acquainted till the other day." "Our acquaintance, however, is of many years date. He was under my uncle s care, you know, a considerable while." "Your uncle!" "Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?" "I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after a moment s reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward s honour and love, and her companion s falsehood "Engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars! I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me, that really I beg your pardon; but surely there must be some mistake of person or name. We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars." "We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling. "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the | must seem so odd, that it ought to be explained. And I do not think Mr. Ferrars can be displeased, when he knows I have trusted you, because I know he has the highest opinion in the world of all your family, and looks upon yourself and the other Miss Dashwoods quite as his own sisters." She paused. Elinor for a few moments remained silent. Her astonishment at what she heard was at first too great for words; but at length forcing herself to speak, and to speak cautiously, she said, with calmness of manner, which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude "May I ask if your engagement is of long standing?" "We have been engaged these four years." "Four years!" "Yes." Elinor, though greatly shocked, still felt unable to believe it. "I did not know," said she, "that you were even acquainted till the other day." "Our acquaintance, however, is of many years date. He was under my uncle s care, you know, a considerable while." "Your uncle!" "Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?" "I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after a moment s reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward s honour and love, and her companion s falsehood "Engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars! I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me, that really I beg your pardon; but surely there must be some mistake of person or name. We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars." "We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling. "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the person I mean; you must allow that I am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who all my happiness depends." "It is strange," replied Elinor, in a most painful perplexity, "that I should never have heard him even mention your name." "No; considering our situation, it was not strange. Our first care has been to keep the matter secret. You knew nothing of me, or my family, and, therefore, there could be no _occasion_ for ever mentioning my name to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister s suspecting | to Mr. _Robert_ Ferrars I never saw him in my life; but," fixing her eyes upon Elinor, "to his eldest brother." What felt Elinor at that moment? Astonishment, that would have been as painful as it was strong, had not an immediate disbelief of the assertion attended it. She turned towards Lucy in silent amazement, unable to divine the reason or object of such a declaration; and though her complexion varied, she stood firm in incredulity, and felt in no danger of an hysterical fit, or a swoon. "You may well be surprised," continued Lucy; "for to be sure you could have had no idea of it before; for I dare say he never dropped the smallest hint of it to you or any of your family; because it was always meant to be a great secret, and I am sure has been faithfully kept so by me to this hour. Not a soul of all my relations know of it but Anne, and I never should have mentioned it to you, if I had not felt the greatest dependence in the world upon your secrecy; and I really thought my behaviour in asking so many questions about Mrs. Ferrars must seem so odd, that it ought to be explained. And I do not think Mr. Ferrars can be displeased, when he knows I have trusted you, because I know he has the highest opinion in the world of all your family, and looks upon yourself and the other Miss Dashwoods quite as his own sisters." She paused. Elinor for a few moments remained silent. Her astonishment at what she heard was at first too great for words; but at length forcing herself to speak, and to speak cautiously, she said, with calmness of manner, which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude "May I ask if your engagement is of long standing?" "We have been engaged these four years." "Four years!" "Yes." Elinor, though greatly shocked, still felt unable to believe it. "I did not know," said she, "that you were even acquainted till the other day." "Our acquaintance, however, is of many years date. He was under my uncle s care, you know, a considerable while." "Your uncle!" "Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?" "I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after a moment s reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward s honour and love, and her companion s falsehood "Engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars! I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me, that really I beg your pardon; but surely there must be some mistake of person or name. We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars." "We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling. "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the person I mean; you must allow that I am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who all my happiness depends." "It is strange," replied Elinor, in a most painful perplexity, "that I should never have heard him even mention your name." "No; considering our situation, it was not strange. Our first care has been to keep the matter secret. You knew nothing of me, or my family, and, therefore, there could be no _occasion_ for ever mentioning my name to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister s suspecting any thing, _that_ was reason enough for his not mentioning it." She was silent. Elinor s security sunk; but her self-command did not sink with it. "Four years you have been engaged," said she with a firm voice. "Yes; and heaven knows how much longer we may have to wait. Poor Edward! It puts him quite out of heart." Then taking a small miniature from her pocket, she added, "To prevent the possibility of mistake, be so good as to look at this face. It does not do him justice, to be sure, but yet I think you cannot be deceived as to the person it was drew for. I have had it above these three years." She put it into her hands as she spoke; and when Elinor saw the painting, whatever other doubts her fear of a too hasty decision, or her wish of detecting falsehood might suffer to linger in her mind, she could have none of its being Edward s face. She returned it almost instantly, acknowledging the likeness. "I have never been able," continued Lucy, "to give him my picture in return, which I am very much vexed at, for he has been always so | at Norland sometimes. Then, perhaps, you cannot tell me what sort of a woman she is?" "No," returned Elinor, cautious of giving her real opinion of Edward s mother, and not very desirous of satisfying what seemed impertinent curiosity; "I know nothing of her." "I am sure you think me very strange, for enquiring about her in such a way," said Lucy, eyeing Elinor attentively as she spoke; "but perhaps there may be reasons I wish I might venture; but however I hope you will do me the justice of believing that I do not mean to be impertinent." Elinor made her a civil reply, and they walked on for a few minutes in silence. It was broken by Lucy, who renewed the subject again by saying, with some hesitation, "I cannot bear to have you think me impertinently curious. I am sure I would rather do any thing in the world than be thought so by a person whose good opinion is so well worth having as yours. And I am sure I should not have the smallest fear of trusting _you;_ indeed, I should be very glad of your advice how to manage in such an uncomfortable situation as I am; but, however, there is no occasion to trouble _you_. I am sorry you do not happen to know Mrs. Ferrars." "I am sorry I do _not_," said Elinor, in great astonishment, "if it could be of any use to YOU to know my opinion of her. But really I never understood that you were at all connected with that family, and therefore I am a little surprised, I confess, at so serious an inquiry into her character." "I dare say you are, and I am sure I do not at all wonder at it. But if I dared tell you all, you would not be so much surprised. Mrs. Ferrars is certainly nothing to me at present but the time _may_ come how soon it will come must depend upon herself when we may be very intimately connected." She looked down as she said this, amiably bashful, with only one side glance at her companion to observe its effect on her. "Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "what do you mean? Are you acquainted with Mr. Robert Ferrars? Can you be?" And she did not feel much delighted with the idea of such a sister-in-law. "No," replied Lucy, "not to Mr. _Robert_ Ferrars I never saw him in my life; but," fixing her eyes upon Elinor, "to his eldest brother." What felt Elinor at that moment? Astonishment, that would have been as painful as it was strong, had not an immediate disbelief of the assertion attended it. She turned towards Lucy in silent amazement, unable to divine the reason or object of such a declaration; and though her complexion varied, she stood firm in incredulity, and felt in no danger of an hysterical fit, or a swoon. "You may well be surprised," continued Lucy; "for to be sure you could have had no idea of it before; for I dare say he never dropped the smallest hint of it to you or any of your family; because it was always meant to be a great secret, and I am sure has been faithfully kept so by me to this hour. Not a soul of all my relations know of it but Anne, and I never should have mentioned it to you, if I had not felt the greatest dependence in the world upon your secrecy; and I really thought my behaviour in asking so many questions about Mrs. Ferrars must seem so odd, that it ought to be explained. And I do not think Mr. Ferrars can be displeased, when he knows I have trusted you, because I know he has the highest opinion in the world of all your family, and looks upon yourself and the other Miss Dashwoods quite as his own sisters." She paused. Elinor for a few moments remained silent. Her astonishment at what she heard was at first too great for words; but at length forcing herself to speak, and to speak cautiously, she said, with calmness of manner, which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude "May I ask if your engagement is of long standing?" "We have been engaged these four years." "Four years!" "Yes." Elinor, though greatly shocked, still felt unable to believe it. "I did not know," said she, "that you were even acquainted till the other day." "Our acquaintance, however, is of many years date. He was under my uncle s care, you know, a considerable while." "Your uncle!" "Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?" "I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after a moment s reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward s honour and love, and her companion s falsehood "Engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars! I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me, that really I beg your pardon; but surely there must be some mistake of person or name. We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars." "We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling. "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the person I mean; you must allow that I am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who all my happiness depends." "It is strange," replied Elinor, in a most painful perplexity, "that I should never have heard him even mention your name." "No; considering our situation, it was not strange. Our first care has been to keep the matter secret. You knew nothing of me, or my family, and, therefore, there could be no _occasion_ for ever mentioning my name to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister s suspecting any thing, _that_ was reason enough for his not mentioning it." She was silent. Elinor s security sunk; but her self-command did not sink with it. "Four years you have been engaged," said she with a firm voice. "Yes; and heaven knows how much longer we may have to wait. Poor Edward! It puts him quite out of heart." Then taking a small miniature from her pocket, she added, "To prevent the possibility of mistake, be so good as to look at this face. It does not do him justice, to be sure, but yet I think you cannot be deceived as to the person it was drew for. I have had it above these three years." She put it into her hands as she spoke; and when Elinor saw the painting, whatever other doubts her fear of a too hasty decision, or her wish of detecting falsehood might suffer to linger in her mind, she could have none of its being Edward s face. She returned it almost instantly, acknowledging the likeness. "I have never been able," continued Lucy, "to give him my picture in return, which I am very much vexed at, for he has been always so anxious to get it! But I am determined to set for it the very first opportunity." "You are quite in the right," replied Elinor calmly. They then proceeded a few paces in silence. Lucy spoke first. "I am sure," said she, "I have no doubt in the world of your faithfully keeping this secret, because you must know of what importance it is to us, not to have it reach his mother; for she would never approve of it, I dare say. I shall have no fortune, and I fancy she is an exceeding proud woman." "I certainly did not seek your confidence," said Elinor; "but you do me no more than justice in imagining that I may be depended on. Your secret is safe with me; but pardon me if I express some surprise at so unnecessary a communication. You must at least have felt that my being acquainted with it could not add to its safety." As she said this, she looked earnestly at Lucy, hoping to discover something in her countenance; perhaps the falsehood of the greatest part of what she had been saying; but Lucy s countenance suffered no change. "I was afraid you would think I was taking a great liberty with you," said she, "in telling you all this. I have not known you long to be sure, personally at least, but I have known you and all your family by description a great while; and as soon as I saw you, I felt almost as if you was an old acquaintance. Besides in the present case, I really thought some explanation was due to you after my making such particular inquiries about Edward s mother; and I am so unfortunate, that I have not a creature whose advice I can ask. Anne is the only person that knows of it, and she has no judgment at all; indeed, she does me a great deal more harm than good, for I am in constant fear of her betraying me. She does not know how to hold her tongue, as you must perceive, and I am sure I was in the greatest fright in the world t other day, when Edward s name was mentioned by Sir John, lest she should out with it all. You can t think how much I go through in my mind from it altogether. I only wonder that I | use to YOU to know my opinion of her. But really I never understood that you were at all connected with that family, and therefore I am a little surprised, I confess, at so serious an inquiry into her character." "I dare say you are, and I am sure I do not at all wonder at it. But if I dared tell you all, you would not be so much surprised. Mrs. Ferrars is certainly nothing to me at present but the time _may_ come how soon it will come must depend upon herself when we may be very intimately connected." She looked down as she said this, amiably bashful, with only one side glance at her companion to observe its effect on her. "Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "what do you mean? Are you acquainted with Mr. Robert Ferrars? Can you be?" And she did not feel much delighted with the idea of such a sister-in-law. "No," replied Lucy, "not to Mr. _Robert_ Ferrars I never saw him in my life; but," fixing her eyes upon Elinor, "to his eldest brother." What felt Elinor at that moment? Astonishment, that would have been as painful as it was strong, had not an immediate disbelief of the assertion attended it. She turned towards Lucy in silent amazement, unable to divine the reason or object of such a declaration; and though her complexion varied, she stood firm in incredulity, and felt in no danger of an hysterical fit, or a swoon. "You may well be surprised," continued Lucy; "for to be sure you could have had no idea of it before; for I dare say he never dropped the smallest hint of it to you or any of your family; because it was always meant to be a great secret, and I am sure has been faithfully kept so by me to this hour. Not a soul of all my relations know of it but Anne, and I never should have mentioned it to you, if I had not felt the greatest dependence in the world upon your secrecy; and I really thought my behaviour in asking so many questions about Mrs. Ferrars must seem so odd, that it ought to be explained. And I do not think Mr. Ferrars can be displeased, when he knows I have trusted you, because I know he has the highest opinion in the world of all your family, and looks upon yourself and the other Miss Dashwoods quite as his own sisters." She paused. Elinor for a few moments remained silent. Her astonishment at what she heard was at first too great for words; but at length forcing herself to speak, and to speak cautiously, she said, with calmness of manner, which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude "May I ask if your engagement is of long standing?" "We have been engaged these four years." "Four years!" "Yes." Elinor, though greatly shocked, still felt unable to believe it. "I did not know," said she, "that you were even acquainted till the other day." "Our acquaintance, however, is of many years date. He was under my uncle s care, you know, a considerable while." "Your uncle!" "Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?" "I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which increased with her increase of emotion.<|quote|>"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near Plymouth. It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he was almost always with us afterwards. I was very unwilling to enter into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so prudent as I ought to have been. Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."</|quote|>"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after a moment s reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward s honour and love, and her companion s falsehood "Engaged to Mr. Edward Ferrars! I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me, that really I beg your pardon; but surely there must be some mistake of person or name. We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars." "We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling. "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the person I mean; you must allow that I am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who all my happiness depends." "It is strange," replied Elinor, in a most painful perplexity, "that I should never have heard him even mention your name." "No; considering our situation, it was not strange. Our first care has been to keep the matter secret. You knew nothing of me, or my family, and, therefore, there could be no _occasion_ for ever mentioning my name to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister s suspecting any thing, _that_ was reason enough for his not mentioning it." She was silent. Elinor s security sunk; but her self-command did not sink with it. "Four years you have been engaged," said she with a firm voice. "Yes; and heaven knows how much longer we may have to wait. Poor Edward! It puts him quite out of heart." Then taking a small miniature from her pocket, she added, "To prevent the possibility of mistake, be so good as to look at this face. It does not do him justice, to be sure, but yet I think you cannot be deceived as to the person it was drew for. I have had it above these three years." She put it into her hands as she spoke; and when Elinor saw the painting, whatever other doubts her fear of a too hasty decision, or her wish of detecting falsehood might suffer to linger in her mind, she could have none of its being Edward s face. She returned it almost instantly, acknowledging the likeness. "I have never been able," continued Lucy, "to give him my picture in return, which I am very much vexed at, for he has been always so anxious to get it! But I am determined to set for it the very first opportunity." "You are quite in the right," replied Elinor calmly. They then proceeded a few paces in silence. Lucy spoke first. "I am sure," said she, "I have no doubt | Sense And Sensibility |
"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?" | Lucy | true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered | too careful, which is quite true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed: "Beware! | "Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome." "It's I who am tiresome," he replied. "I oughtn't to come with my troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed: "Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man." "Really--" he murmured gallantly, | has come down." "I think I follow you," said Sir Harry; "but it is, as you say, a very sad thing." "The Misses Alan aren't that!" cried Lucy. "Yes, they are," said Cecil. "I haven't met them but I should say they were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood." "Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome." "It's I who am tiresome," he replied. "I oughtn't to come with my troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed: "Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man." "Really--" he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her remark. "Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there's an end of them--they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar, they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a man--of course, provided he's clean." | or not respectable. And oh, the deceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The deceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit!" She nodded. "My advice," put in Mrs. Honeychurch, "is to have nothing to do with Lucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me from people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them that make the house smell stuffy. It's a sad thing, but I'd far rather let to someone who is going up in the world than to someone who has come down." "I think I follow you," said Sir Harry; "but it is, as you say, a very sad thing." "The Misses Alan aren't that!" cried Lucy. "Yes, they are," said Cecil. "I haven't met them but I should say they were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood." "Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome." "It's I who am tiresome," he replied. "I oughtn't to come with my troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed: "Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man." "Really--" he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her remark. "Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there's an end of them--they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar, they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a man--of course, provided he's clean." Sir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments to their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much distinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time, should descend from the carriage and inspect "Cissie" for herself. She was delighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a house. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they were on a small scale. Cecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother. "Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "what if we two walk home and leave you?" "Certainly!" was her | had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied that the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a most appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless neighbour, and roused herself to stop him. "Sir Harry!" she exclaimed, "I have an idea. How would you like spinsters?" "My dear Lucy, it would be splendid. Do you know any such?" "Yes; I met them abroad." "Gentlewomen?" he asked tentatively. "Yes, indeed, and at the present moment homeless. I heard from them last week--Miss Teresa and Miss Catharine Alan. I'm really not joking. They are quite the right people. Mr. Beebe knows them, too. May I tell them to write to you?" "Indeed you may!" he cried. "Here we are with the difficulty solved already. How delightful it is! Extra facilities--please tell them they shall have extra facilities, for I shall have no agents' fees. Oh, the agents! The appalling people they have sent me! One woman, when I wrote--a tactful letter, you know--asking her to explain her social position to me, replied that she would pay the rent in advance. As if one cares about that! And several references I took up were most unsatisfactory--people swindlers, or not respectable. And oh, the deceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The deceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit!" She nodded. "My advice," put in Mrs. Honeychurch, "is to have nothing to do with Lucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me from people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them that make the house smell stuffy. It's a sad thing, but I'd far rather let to someone who is going up in the world than to someone who has come down." "I think I follow you," said Sir Harry; "but it is, as you say, a very sad thing." "The Misses Alan aren't that!" cried Lucy. "Yes, they are," said Cecil. "I haven't met them but I should say they were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood." "Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome." "It's I who am tiresome," he replied. "I oughtn't to come with my troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed: "Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man." "Really--" he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her remark. "Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there's an end of them--they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar, they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a man--of course, provided he's clean." Sir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments to their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much distinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time, should descend from the carriage and inspect "Cissie" for herself. She was delighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a house. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they were on a small scale. Cecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother. "Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "what if we two walk home and leave you?" "Certainly!" was her cordial reply. Sir Harry likewise seemed almost too glad to get rid of them. He beamed at them knowingly, said, "Aha! young people, young people!" and then hastened to unlock the house. "Hopeless vulgarian!" exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of earshot. "Oh, Cecil!" "I can't help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man." "He isn't clever, but really he is nice." "No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he would keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife would give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little god with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and everyone--even your mother--is taken in." "All that you say is quite true," said Lucy, though she felt discouraged. "I wonder whether--whether it matters so very much." "It matters supremely. Sir Harry is the essence of that garden-party. Oh, goodness, how cross I feel! How I do hope he'll get some vulgar tenant in that villa--some woman so really vulgar that he'll notice it. GENTLEFOLKS! Ugh! with his bald head and retreating chin! But let's forget him." This Lucy was glad enough | building commenced: but he was apathetic and dilatory. He had known Summer Street for so many years that he could not imagine it being spoilt. Not till Mrs. Flack had laid the foundation stone, and the apparition of red and cream brick began to rise did he take alarm. He called on Mr. Flack, the local builder,--a most reasonable and respectful man--who agreed that tiles would have made more artistic roof, but pointed out that slates were cheaper. He ventured to differ, however, about the Corinthian columns which were to cling like leeches to the frames of the bow windows, saying that, for his part, he liked to relieve the facade by a bit of decoration. Sir Harry hinted that a column, if possible, should be structural as well as decorative. Mr. Flack replied that all the columns had been ordered, adding, "and all the capitals different--one with dragons in the foliage, another approaching to the Ionian style, another introducing Mrs. Flack's initials--everyone different." For he had read his Ruskin. He built his villas according to his desire; and not until he had inserted an immovable aunt into one of them did Sir Harry buy. This futile and unprofitable transaction filled the knight with sadness as he leant on Mrs. Honeychurch's carriage. He had failed in his duties to the country-side, and the country-side was laughing at him as well. He had spent money, and yet Summer Street was spoilt as much as ever. All he could do now was to find a desirable tenant for "Cissie"--some one really desirable. "The rent is absurdly low," he told them, "and perhaps I am an easy landlord. But it is such an awkward size. It is too large for the peasant class and too small for any one the least like ourselves." Cecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or despise Sir Harry for despising them. The latter impulse seemed the more fruitful. "You ought to find a tenant at once," he said maliciously. "It would be a perfect paradise for a bank clerk." "Exactly!" said Sir Harry excitedly. "That is exactly what I fear, Mr. Vyse. It will attract the wrong type of people. The train service has improved--a fatal improvement, to my mind. And what are five miles from a station in these days of bicycles?" "Rather a strenuous clerk it would be," said Lucy. Cecil, who had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied that the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a most appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless neighbour, and roused herself to stop him. "Sir Harry!" she exclaimed, "I have an idea. How would you like spinsters?" "My dear Lucy, it would be splendid. Do you know any such?" "Yes; I met them abroad." "Gentlewomen?" he asked tentatively. "Yes, indeed, and at the present moment homeless. I heard from them last week--Miss Teresa and Miss Catharine Alan. I'm really not joking. They are quite the right people. Mr. Beebe knows them, too. May I tell them to write to you?" "Indeed you may!" he cried. "Here we are with the difficulty solved already. How delightful it is! Extra facilities--please tell them they shall have extra facilities, for I shall have no agents' fees. Oh, the agents! The appalling people they have sent me! One woman, when I wrote--a tactful letter, you know--asking her to explain her social position to me, replied that she would pay the rent in advance. As if one cares about that! And several references I took up were most unsatisfactory--people swindlers, or not respectable. And oh, the deceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The deceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit!" She nodded. "My advice," put in Mrs. Honeychurch, "is to have nothing to do with Lucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me from people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them that make the house smell stuffy. It's a sad thing, but I'd far rather let to someone who is going up in the world than to someone who has come down." "I think I follow you," said Sir Harry; "but it is, as you say, a very sad thing." "The Misses Alan aren't that!" cried Lucy. "Yes, they are," said Cecil. "I haven't met them but I should say they were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood." "Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome." "It's I who am tiresome," he replied. "I oughtn't to come with my troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed: "Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man." "Really--" he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her remark. "Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there's an end of them--they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar, they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a man--of course, provided he's clean." Sir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments to their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much distinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time, should descend from the carriage and inspect "Cissie" for herself. She was delighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a house. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they were on a small scale. Cecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother. "Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "what if we two walk home and leave you?" "Certainly!" was her cordial reply. Sir Harry likewise seemed almost too glad to get rid of them. He beamed at them knowingly, said, "Aha! young people, young people!" and then hastened to unlock the house. "Hopeless vulgarian!" exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of earshot. "Oh, Cecil!" "I can't help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man." "He isn't clever, but really he is nice." "No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he would keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife would give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little god with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and everyone--even your mother--is taken in." "All that you say is quite true," said Lucy, though she felt discouraged. "I wonder whether--whether it matters so very much." "It matters supremely. Sir Harry is the essence of that garden-party. Oh, goodness, how cross I feel! How I do hope he'll get some vulgar tenant in that villa--some woman so really vulgar that he'll notice it. GENTLEFOLKS! Ugh! with his bald head and retreating chin! But let's forget him." This Lucy was glad enough to do. If Cecil disliked Sir Harry Otway and Mr. Beebe, what guarantee was there that the people who really mattered to her would escape? For instance, Freddy. Freddy was neither clever, nor subtle, nor beautiful, and what prevented Cecil from saying, any minute, "It would be wrong not to loathe Freddy"? And what would she reply? Further than Freddy she did not go, but he gave her anxiety enough. She could only assure herself that Cecil had known Freddy some time, and that they had always got on pleasantly, except, perhaps, during the last few days, which was an accident, perhaps. "Which way shall we go?" she asked him. Nature--simplest of topics, she thought--was around them. Summer Street lay deep in the woods, and she had stopped where a footpath diverged from the highroad. "Are there two ways?" "Perhaps the road is more sensible, as we're got up smart." "I'd rather go through the wood," said Cecil, With that subdued irritation that she had noticed in him all the afternoon. "Why is it, Lucy, that you always say the road? Do you know that you have never once been with me in the fields or the wood since we were engaged?" "Haven't I? The wood, then," said Lucy, startled at his queerness, but pretty sure that he would explain later; it was not his habit to leave her in doubt as to his meaning. She led the way into the whispering pines, and sure enough he did explain before they had gone a dozen yards. "I had got an idea--I dare say wrongly--that you feel more at home with me in a room." "A room?" she echoed, hopelessly bewildered. "Yes. Or, at the most, in a garden, or on a road. Never in the real country like this." "Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean? I have never felt anything of the sort. You talk as if I was a kind of poetess sort of person." "I don't know that you aren't. I connect you with a view--a certain type of view. Why shouldn't you connect me with a room?" She reflected a moment, and then said, laughing: "Do you know that you're right? I do. I must be a poetess after all. When I think of you it's always as in a room. How funny!" To her surprise, he seemed annoyed. "A drawing-room, pray? With no view?" "Yes, with | at a most appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless neighbour, and roused herself to stop him. "Sir Harry!" she exclaimed, "I have an idea. How would you like spinsters?" "My dear Lucy, it would be splendid. Do you know any such?" "Yes; I met them abroad." "Gentlewomen?" he asked tentatively. "Yes, indeed, and at the present moment homeless. I heard from them last week--Miss Teresa and Miss Catharine Alan. I'm really not joking. They are quite the right people. Mr. Beebe knows them, too. May I tell them to write to you?" "Indeed you may!" he cried. "Here we are with the difficulty solved already. How delightful it is! Extra facilities--please tell them they shall have extra facilities, for I shall have no agents' fees. Oh, the agents! The appalling people they have sent me! One woman, when I wrote--a tactful letter, you know--asking her to explain her social position to me, replied that she would pay the rent in advance. As if one cares about that! And several references I took up were most unsatisfactory--people swindlers, or not respectable. And oh, the deceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The deceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit!" She nodded. "My advice," put in Mrs. Honeychurch, "is to have nothing to do with Lucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me from people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them that make the house smell stuffy. It's a sad thing, but I'd far rather let to someone who is going up in the world than to someone who has come down." "I think I follow you," said Sir Harry; "but it is, as you say, a very sad thing." "The Misses Alan aren't that!" cried Lucy. "Yes, they are," said Cecil. "I haven't met them but I should say they were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood." "Don't listen to him, Sir Harry--he's tiresome." "It's I who am tiresome," he replied. "I oughtn't to come with my troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no real help."<|quote|>"Then may I write to my Misses Alan?"</|quote|>"Please!" But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed: "Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man." "Really--" he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her remark. "Men don't gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there's an end of them--they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they're vulgar, they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn't spread so. Give me a man--of course, provided he's clean." Sir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments to their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much distinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time, should descend from the carriage and inspect "Cissie" for herself. She was delighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a house. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they were on a small scale. Cecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother. "Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "what if we two walk home and leave you?" "Certainly!" was her cordial reply. Sir Harry likewise seemed almost too glad to get rid of them. He beamed at them knowingly, said, "Aha! young people, young people!" and then hastened to unlock the house. "Hopeless vulgarian!" exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of earshot. "Oh, Cecil!" "I can't help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man." "He isn't clever, but really he is nice." "No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he would keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife would give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little god with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and everyone--even your mother--is taken in." "All that you say is quite true," said Lucy, though she felt discouraged. "I wonder whether--whether it matters so very much." "It matters supremely. Sir Harry is the essence of that garden-party. Oh, goodness, how cross I feel! How I do hope he'll get some vulgar tenant in that villa--some woman so really vulgar that he'll notice it. GENTLEFOLKS! Ugh! with his bald head and retreating chin! But let's forget him." This Lucy was glad enough to do. If Cecil disliked Sir Harry Otway and Mr. Beebe, what guarantee was there that the people who really mattered to her would escape? For instance, Freddy. Freddy was neither clever, nor subtle, nor beautiful, and what prevented Cecil from saying, any minute, "It would be wrong not to loathe Freddy"? And what would she reply? Further than Freddy she did not go, but he gave her anxiety enough. She could only assure herself that Cecil had known Freddy some time, and that they had always got on pleasantly, except, perhaps, during the last few days, which was an accident, perhaps. "Which way shall we go?" she asked him. Nature--simplest of topics, she thought--was around them. Summer Street lay deep in the woods, and she had stopped where a footpath diverged from the highroad. "Are there two ways?" "Perhaps the road is more sensible, as we're got up smart." "I'd rather go through the wood," said Cecil, With that subdued irritation that she had noticed in him all the afternoon. "Why is it, Lucy, | A Room With A View |
Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason. | No speaker | End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox | Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an | said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother." "As usual, you ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea." "I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said No. Just imagine, if she d said Yes, she would have been Charles s aunt. (Oh, I say, that s rather good! Charlie s Aunt ! I must chaff | Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once." "I shouldn t have disliked it, perhaps." "Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly. Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined to learn a good deal. "But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother." "As usual, you ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea." "I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said No. Just imagine, if she d said Yes, she would have been Charles s aunt. (Oh, I say, that s rather good! Charlie s Aunt ! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I m certain I ve got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them." "I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently. "I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" cried Dolly. "I m rather on the spot | classes are so stupid." "Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?" Margaret asked, and found herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly s drawing-room. "She s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume things. She assumed you d know who she was. She left all the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you d seen them as you came in, that you d lock up the house when you d done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once." "I shouldn t have disliked it, perhaps." "Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly. Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined to learn a good deal. "But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother." "As usual, you ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea." "I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said No. Just imagine, if she d said Yes, she would have been Charles s aunt. (Oh, I say, that s rather good! Charlie s Aunt ! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I m certain I ve got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them." "I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently. "I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" cried Dolly. "I m rather on the spot this evening, eh?" "I wish you d ask whether Crane s ended." "Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?" "Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly s a good little woman," he continued, "but a little of her goes a long way. I couldn t live near her if you paid me." Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, | walking. Good-day." And the old woman passed out into the rain. CHAPTER XXIV "It gave her quite a turn," said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident to Dolly at tea-time. "None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery--she frightened you, didn t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch of weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the stairs with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old maids do." He lit a cigarette. "It is their last resource. Heaven knows what she was doing in the place; but that s Bryce s business, not mine." "I wasn t as foolish as you suggest," said Margaret "She only startled me, for the house had been silent so long." "Did you take her for a spook?" asked Dolly, for whom "spooks" and "going to church" summarised the unseen. "Not exactly." "She really did frighten you," said Henry, who was far from discouraging timidity in females. "Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated classes are so stupid." "Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?" Margaret asked, and found herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly s drawing-room. "She s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume things. She assumed you d know who she was. She left all the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you d seen them as you came in, that you d lock up the house when you d done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once." "I shouldn t have disliked it, perhaps." "Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly. Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined to learn a good deal. "But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother." "As usual, you ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea." "I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said No. Just imagine, if she d said Yes, she would have been Charles s aunt. (Oh, I say, that s rather good! Charlie s Aunt ! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I m certain I ve got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them." "I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently. "I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" cried Dolly. "I m rather on the spot this evening, eh?" "I wish you d ask whether Crane s ended." "Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?" "Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly s a good little woman," he continued, "but a little of her goes a long way. I couldn t live near her if you paid me." Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton. His objections to the house were plain as daylight now. Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car had been trickling muddy water over Charles s. The downpour had surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless civilisation. "Curious mounds," said Henry, "but in with you now; another time." He had to be up in London by seven--if possible, by six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees, houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness, and she was at Wickham Place. Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little. She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise England. She failed--visions do not come when we try, though they may come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on | beam. The dining-room and hall revealed theirs openly, but the drawing-room s was match-boarded--because the facts of life must be concealed from ladies? Drawing-room, dining-room, and hall--how petty the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms where children could play and friends shelter from the rain. Yes, and they were beautiful. Then she opened one of the doors opposite--there were two--and exchanged wall-papers for whitewash. It was the servants part, though she scarcely realised that: just rooms again, where friends might shelter. The garden at the back was full of flowering cherries and plums. Farther on were hints of the meadow and a black cliff of pines. Yes, the meadow was beautiful. Penned in by the desolate weather, she recaptured the sense of space which the motor had tried to rob from her. She remembered again that ten square miles are not ten times as wonderful as one square mile, that a thousand square miles are not practically the same as heaven. The phantom of bigness, which London encourages, was laid for ever when she paced from the hall at Howards End to its kitchen and heard the rain run this way and that where the watershed of the roof divided it. Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinising half Wessex from the ridge of the Purbeck Downs, and saying: "You will have to lose something." She was not so sure. For instance she would double her kingdom by opening the door that concealed the stairs. Now she thought of the map of Africa; of empires; of her father; of the two supreme nations, streams of whose life warmed her blood, but, mingling, had cooled her brain. She paced back into the hall, and as she did so the house reverberated. "Is that you, Henry?" she called. There was no answer, but the house reverberated again. "Henry, have you got in?" But it was the heart of the house beating, faintly at first, then loudly, martially. It dominated the rain. It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished, that is afraid. Margaret flung open the door to the stairs. A noise as of drums seemed to deafen her. A woman, an old woman, was descending, with figure erect, with face impassive, with lips that parted and said dryly: "Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox." Margaret stammered: "I--Mrs. Wilcox--I?" "In fancy, of course--in fancy. You had her way of walking. Good-day." And the old woman passed out into the rain. CHAPTER XXIV "It gave her quite a turn," said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident to Dolly at tea-time. "None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery--she frightened you, didn t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch of weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the stairs with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old maids do." He lit a cigarette. "It is their last resource. Heaven knows what she was doing in the place; but that s Bryce s business, not mine." "I wasn t as foolish as you suggest," said Margaret "She only startled me, for the house had been silent so long." "Did you take her for a spook?" asked Dolly, for whom "spooks" and "going to church" summarised the unseen. "Not exactly." "She really did frighten you," said Henry, who was far from discouraging timidity in females. "Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated classes are so stupid." "Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?" Margaret asked, and found herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly s drawing-room. "She s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume things. She assumed you d know who she was. She left all the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you d seen them as you came in, that you d lock up the house when you d done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once." "I shouldn t have disliked it, perhaps." "Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly. Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined to learn a good deal. "But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother." "As usual, you ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea." "I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said No. Just imagine, if she d said Yes, she would have been Charles s aunt. (Oh, I say, that s rather good! Charlie s Aunt ! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I m certain I ve got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them." "I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently. "I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" cried Dolly. "I m rather on the spot this evening, eh?" "I wish you d ask whether Crane s ended." "Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?" "Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly s a good little woman," he continued, "but a little of her goes a long way. I couldn t live near her if you paid me." Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton. His objections to the house were plain as daylight now. Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car had been trickling muddy water over Charles s. The downpour had surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless civilisation. "Curious mounds," said Henry, "but in with you now; another time." He had to be up in London by seven--if possible, by six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees, houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness, and she was at Wickham Place. Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little. She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise England. She failed--visions do not come when we try, though they may come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable. Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss Avery. Through them: the notion of "through" persisted; her mind trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into words. Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of spring. Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his property, and had explained to her the use and dimensions of the various rooms. He had sketched the history of the little estate. "It is so unlucky," ran the monologue, "that money wasn t put into it about fifty years ago. Then it had four--five--times the land--thirty acres at least. One could have made something out of it then--a small park, or at all events shrubberies, and rebuilt the house farther away from the road. What s the good of taking it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and even that was heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things--yes, and the house too. Oh, it was no joke." She saw two women as he spoke, one old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt away. She saw them greet him as a deliverer. "Mismanagement did it--besides, the days for small farms are over. It doesn t pay--except with intensive cultivation. Small holdings, back to the land--ah! philanthropic bunkum. Take it as a rule that nothing pays on a small scale. Most of the land you see" (they were standing at an upper window, the only one which faced west) "belongs to the people at the Park--they made their pile over copper--good chaps. Avery s Farm, Sishe s--what they call the Common, where you see that ruined oak--one after the other fell in, and so did this, as near as is no matter." But Henry had saved it as near as is no matter without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved it, and she loved him for the deed. "When I had more control I did what I could--sold off the two and a half animals, and the mangy pony, and the superannuated tools; pulled down the outhouses; drained; thinned out I don t | Margaret flung open the door to the stairs. A noise as of drums seemed to deafen her. A woman, an old woman, was descending, with figure erect, with face impassive, with lips that parted and said dryly: "Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox." Margaret stammered: "I--Mrs. Wilcox--I?" "In fancy, of course--in fancy. You had her way of walking. Good-day." And the old woman passed out into the rain. CHAPTER XXIV "It gave her quite a turn," said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident to Dolly at tea-time. "None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery--she frightened you, didn t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch of weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the stairs with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old maids do." He lit a cigarette. "It is their last resource. Heaven knows what she was doing in the place; but that s Bryce s business, not mine." "I wasn t as foolish as you suggest," said Margaret "She only startled me, for the house had been silent so long." "Did you take her for a spook?" asked Dolly, for whom "spooks" and "going to church" summarised the unseen. "Not exactly." "She really did frighten you," said Henry, who was far from discouraging timidity in females. "Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated classes are so stupid." "Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?" Margaret asked, and found herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly s drawing-room. "She s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume things. She assumed you d know who she was. She left all the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you d seen them as you came in, that you d lock up the house when you d done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery once." "I shouldn t have disliked it, perhaps." "Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly. Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined to learn a good deal. "But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his grandmother." "As usual, you ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea." "I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house. Weren t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a farm?"<|quote|>Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.</|quote|>"Then hadn t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said No. Just imagine, if she d said Yes, she would have been Charles s aunt. (Oh, I say, that s rather good! Charlie s Aunt ! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I m certain I ve got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them." "I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently. "I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" cried Dolly. "I m rather on the spot this evening, eh?" "I wish you d ask whether Crane s ended." "Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?" "Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly s a good little woman," he continued, "but a little of her goes a long way. I couldn t live near her if you paid me." Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton. His objections to the house were plain as daylight now. Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car had been trickling muddy water over Charles s. The downpour had surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless civilisation. "Curious mounds," said Henry, "but in with you now; another time." He had to be up in London by seven--if possible, by six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees, houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness, and she was at Wickham Place. Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little. She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise England. She failed--visions do not come when we try, though they may come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable. Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this afternoon. It | Howards End |
"At this time of night?" | Cassandra Otway | got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you | be late, but I ve got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. | did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, | sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick. "Can you make her out?" Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, | she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick. "Can you make her out?" Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an occasional jet of flickering gas. The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found herself in the presence of a young | I couldn t see where you d got to our children," he observed parenthetically, "have their uses I want you to go to my study, Katharine; go to the third shelf on the right-hand side of the door; take down Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley ; bring it to me. Then, Peyton, you will have to admit to the assembled company that you have been mistaken." "Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley. The third shelf on the right of the door," Katharine repeated. After all, one does not check children in their play, or rouse sleepers from their dreams. She passed William and Cassandra on her way to the door. "Stop, Katharine," said William, speaking almost as if he were conscious of her against his will. "Let me go." He rose, after a second s hesitation, and she understood that it cost him an effort. She knelt one knee upon the sofa where Cassandra sat, looking down at her cousin s face, which still moved with the speed of what she had been saying. "Are you happy?" she asked. "Oh, my dear!" Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were needed. "Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun," she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick. "Can you make her out?" Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an occasional jet of flickering gas. The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a chair and holding a sheet of paper in his hand, at which he was looking as if he expected to go on immediately with what he was in the middle of saying to Mary Datchet. The apparition of an unknown lady in full evening dress seemed to disturb him. He took his pipe from his mouth, rose stiffly, and sat down again with a jerk. "Have you been dining out?" Mary asked. "Are you working?" Katharine inquired simultaneously. The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the question with some irritation. "Well, not exactly," Mary replied. "Mr. Basnett had brought some papers to show me. We were going through them, but we d almost done.... Tell us about your party." Mary had a ruffled appearance, as if she had been running her fingers through her hair in the course of her conversation; she was dressed more or less like a Russian peasant girl. She sat down again in a chair which looked as if it had been her seat for some hours; the saucer which stood upon the arm contained the ashes of many cigarettes. Mr. Basnett, a | she was ready to pay for her transgression with some plausible falsehood. She pushed aside the blind and looked at the river. But it was a dark night and the water was barely visible. Cabs were passing, and couples were loitering slowly along the road, keeping as close to the railings as possible, though the trees had as yet no leaves to cast shadow upon their embraces. Katharine, thus withdrawn, felt her loneliness. The evening had been one of pain, offering her, minute after minute, plainer proof that things would fall out as she had foreseen. She had faced tones, gestures, glances; she knew, with her back to them, that William, even now, was plunging deeper and deeper into the delight of unexpected understanding with Cassandra. He had almost told her that he was finding it infinitely better than he could have believed. She looked out of the window, sternly determined to forget private misfortunes, to forget herself, to forget individual lives. With her eyes upon the dark sky, voices reached her from the room in which she was standing. She heard them as if they came from people in another world, a world antecedent to her world, a world that was the prelude, the antechamber to reality; it was as if, lately dead, she heard the living talking. The dream nature of our life had never been more apparent to her, never had life been more certainly an affair of four walls, whose objects existed only within the range of lights and fires, beyond which lay nothing, or nothing more than darkness. She seemed physically to have stepped beyond the region where the light of illusion still makes it desirable to possess, to love, to struggle. And yet her melancholy brought her no serenity. She still heard the voices within the room. She was still tormented by desires. She wished to be beyond their range. She wished inconsistently enough that she could find herself driving rapidly through the streets; she was even anxious to be with some one who, after a moment s groping, took a definite shape and solidified into the person of Mary Datchet. She drew the curtains so that the draperies met in deep folds in the middle of the window. "Ah, there she is," said Mr. Hilbery, who was standing swaying affably from side to side, with his back to the fire. "Come here, Katharine. I couldn t see where you d got to our children," he observed parenthetically, "have their uses I want you to go to my study, Katharine; go to the third shelf on the right-hand side of the door; take down Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley ; bring it to me. Then, Peyton, you will have to admit to the assembled company that you have been mistaken." "Trelawny s Recollections of Shelley. The third shelf on the right of the door," Katharine repeated. After all, one does not check children in their play, or rouse sleepers from their dreams. She passed William and Cassandra on her way to the door. "Stop, Katharine," said William, speaking almost as if he were conscious of her against his will. "Let me go." He rose, after a second s hesitation, and she understood that it cost him an effort. She knelt one knee upon the sofa where Cassandra sat, looking down at her cousin s face, which still moved with the speed of what she had been saying. "Are you happy?" she asked. "Oh, my dear!" Cassandra exclaimed, as if no further words were needed. "Of course, we disagree about every subject under the sun," she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick. "Can you make her out?" Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an occasional jet of flickering gas. The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a chair and holding a sheet of paper in his hand, at which he was looking as if he expected to go on immediately with what he was in the middle of saying to Mary Datchet. The apparition of an unknown lady in full evening dress seemed to disturb him. He took his pipe from his mouth, rose stiffly, and sat down again with a jerk. "Have you been dining out?" Mary asked. "Are you working?" Katharine inquired simultaneously. The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the question with some irritation. "Well, not exactly," Mary replied. "Mr. Basnett had brought some papers to show me. We were going through them, but we d almost done.... Tell us about your party." Mary had a ruffled appearance, as if she had been running her fingers through her hair in the course of her conversation; she was dressed more or less like a Russian peasant girl. She sat down again in a chair which looked as if it had been her seat for some hours; the saucer which stood upon the arm contained the ashes of many cigarettes. Mr. Basnett, a very young man with a fresh complexion and a high forehead from which the hair was combed straight back, was one of that group of "very able young men" suspected by Mr. Clacton, justly as it turned out, of an influence upon Mary Datchet. He had come down from one of the Universities not long ago, and was now charged with the reformation of society. In connection with the rest of the group of very able young men he had drawn up a scheme for the education of labor, for the amalgamation of the middle class and the working class, and for a joint assault of the two bodies, combined in the Society for the Education of Democracy, upon Capital. The scheme had already reached the stage in which it was permissible to hire an office and engage a secretary, and he had been deputed to expound the scheme to Mary, and make her an offer of the Secretaryship, to which, as a matter of principle, a small salary was attached. Since seven o clock that evening he had been reading out loud the document in which the faith of the new reformers was expounded, but the reading was so frequently interrupted by discussion, and it was so often necessary to inform Mary "in strictest confidence" of the private characters and evil designs of certain individuals and societies that they were still only half-way through the manuscript. Neither of them realized that the talk had already lasted three hours. In their absorption they had forgotten even to feed the fire, and yet both Mr. Basnett in his exposition, and Mary in her interrogation, carefully preserved a kind of formality calculated to check the desire of the human mind for irrelevant discussion. Her questions frequently began, "Am I to understand " and his replies invariably represented the views of some one called "we." By this time Mary was almost persuaded that she, too, was included in the "we," and agreed with Mr. Basnett in believing that "our" views, "our" society, "our" policy, stood for something quite definitely segregated from the main body of society in a circle of superior illumination. The appearance of Katharine in this atmosphere was extremely incongruous, and had the effect of making Mary remember all sorts of things that she had been glad to forget. "You ve been dining out?" she asked again, looking, with a little | the sun," she exclaimed, "but I think he s the cleverest man I ve ever met and you re the most beautiful woman," she added, looking at Katharine, and as she looked her face lost its animation and became almost melancholy in sympathy with Katharine s melancholy, which seemed to Cassandra the last refinement of her distinction. "Ah, but it s only ten o clock," said Katharine darkly. "As late as that! Well ?" She did not understand. "At twelve my horses turn into rats and off I go. The illusion fades. But I accept my fate. I make hay while the sun shines." Cassandra looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Here s Katharine talking about rats, and hay, and all sorts of odd things," she said, as William returned to them. He had been quick. "Can you make her out?" Katharine perceived from his little frown and hesitation that he did not find that particular problem to his taste at present. She stood upright at once and said in a different tone: "I really am off, though. I wish you d explain if they say anything, William. I shan t be late, but I ve got to see some one."<|quote|>"At this time of night?"</|quote|>Cassandra exclaimed. "Whom have you got to see?" William demanded. "A friend," she remarked, half turning her head towards him. She knew that he wished her to stay, not, indeed, with them, but in their neighborhood, in case of need. "Katharine has a great many friends," said William rather lamely, sitting down once more, as Katharine left the room. She was soon driving quickly, as she had wished to drive, through the lamp-lit streets. She liked both light and speed, and the sense of being out of doors alone, and the knowledge that she would reach Mary in her high, lonely room at the end of the drive. She climbed the stone steps quickly, remarking the queer look of her blue silk skirt and blue shoes upon the stone, dusty with the boots of the day, under the light of an occasional jet of flickering gas. The door was opened in a second by Mary herself, whose face showed not only surprise at the sight of her visitor, but some degree of embarrassment. She greeted her cordially, and, as there was no time for explanations, Katharine walked straight into the sitting-room, and found herself in the presence of a young man who was lying back in a chair and holding a sheet of paper in his hand, at which he was looking as if he expected to go on immediately with what he was in the middle of saying to Mary Datchet. The apparition of an unknown lady in full evening dress seemed to disturb him. He took his pipe from his mouth, rose stiffly, and sat down again with a jerk. "Have you been dining out?" Mary asked. "Are you working?" Katharine inquired simultaneously. The young man shook his head, as if he disowned his share in the question with some irritation. "Well, not exactly," Mary replied. "Mr. Basnett had brought some papers to show me. We were going through them, but we d almost done.... Tell us about your party." Mary had a ruffled appearance, as if she had been running her fingers through her hair in the course of her conversation; she was dressed more or less like a Russian peasant girl. She sat down again in a chair which looked as if it had been her seat for some hours; the saucer which stood upon the arm contained the ashes of many cigarettes. Mr. Basnett, a very young man with a fresh complexion | Night And Day |
"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right." | Anne Shirley | might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and | shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were | smiling at me." When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said: "We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over--" "Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little | so many things to like in this world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me." When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said: "We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over--" "Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding | born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge _did_ crumple up I'd want to _see_ it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me." When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said: "We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over--" "Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise. "That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing. Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly. "Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so's you could tell." "No, she didn't--really she didn't. All she said might just as well have been about most of those other places. I hadn't any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if | I hate the look of them." "Oh, I don't think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you think it can? There doesn't seem to be much connection between grubs and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it Barry's pond?" "I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard Slope's the name of his place. If it wasn't for that big bush behind it you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge and round by the road, so it's near half a mile further." "Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either--about my size." "He's got one about eleven. Her name is Diana." "Oh!" with a long indrawing of breath. "What a perfectly lovely name!" "Well now, I dunno. There's something dreadful heathenish about it, seems to me. I'd ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana." "I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge _did_ crumple up I'd want to _see_ it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me." When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said: "We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over--" "Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise. "That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing. Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly. "Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so's you could tell." "No, she didn't--really she didn't. All she said might just as well have been about most of those other places. I hadn't any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I've pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I'd be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd pinch myself to see if it was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I'd better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But it _is_ real and we're nearly home." With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was | was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight. Have we really only another mile to go before we get home? I'm glad and I'm sorry. I'm sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I'm always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may come after, but you can never be sure. And it's so often the case that it isn't pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I'm glad to think of getting home. You see, I've never had a real home since I can remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming to a really truly home. Oh, isn't that pretty!" They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a glory of many shifting hues--the most spiritual shadings of crocus and rose and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into fringing groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs. There was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on a slope beyond and, although it was not yet quite dark, a light was shining from one of its windows. "That's Barry's pond," said Matthew. "Oh, I don't like that name, either. I shall call it--let me see--the Lake of Shining Waters. Yes, that is the right name for it. I know because of the thrill. When I hit on a name that suits exactly it gives me a thrill. Do things ever give you a thrill?" Matthew ruminated. "Well now, yes. It always kind of gives me a thrill to see them ugly white grubs that spade up in the cucumber beds. I hate the look of them." "Oh, I don't think that can be exactly the same kind of a thrill. Do you think it can? There doesn't seem to be much connection between grubs and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it Barry's pond?" "I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard Slope's the name of his place. If it wasn't for that big bush behind it you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge and round by the road, so it's near half a mile further." "Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either--about my size." "He's got one about eleven. Her name is Diana." "Oh!" with a long indrawing of breath. "What a perfectly lovely name!" "Well now, I dunno. There's something dreadful heathenish about it, seems to me. I'd ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana." "I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge _did_ crumple up I'd want to _see_ it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me." When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said: "We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over--" "Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise. "That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing. Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly. "Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so's you could tell." "No, she didn't--really she didn't. All she said might just as well have been about most of those other places. I hadn't any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I've pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I'd be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd pinch myself to see if it was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I'd better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But it _is_ real and we're nearly home." With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was not of Marilla or himself he was thinking of the trouble this mistake was probably going to make for them, but of the child's disappointment. When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something--much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature. The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were rustling silkily all round it. "Listen to the trees talking in their sleep," she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. "What nice dreams they must have!" Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained "all her worldly goods," she followed him into the house. CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised |MARILLA came briskly forward as Matthew opened the door. But when her eyes fell on the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the long braids of red hair and the eager, luminous eyes, she stopped short in amazement. "Matthew Cuthbert, who's that?" she ejaculated. "Where is the boy?" "There wasn't any boy," said Matthew wretchedly. "There was only _her_." He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her name. "No boy! But there _must_ have been a boy," insisted Marilla. "We sent word to Mrs. Spencer to bring a boy." "Well, she didn't. She brought _her_. I asked the station-master. And I had to bring her home. She couldn't be left there, no matter where the mistake had come in." "Well, this is a pretty piece of business!" ejaculated Marilla. During this dialogue the child had remained silent, her eyes roving from one to the other, all the animation fading out of her face. Suddenly she seemed to grasp the full meaning of what had been said. Dropping her precious carpet-bag she sprang forward a step and clasped her hands. "You don't want me!" she cried. "You don't want me because I'm not a boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me. Oh, what shall I do? I'm going to burst into tears!" Burst into tears she did. Sitting down on a chair by the table, flinging her arms out | to be much connection between grubs and lakes of shining waters, does there? But why do other people call it Barry's pond?" "I reckon because Mr. Barry lives up there in that house. Orchard Slope's the name of his place. If it wasn't for that big bush behind it you could see Green Gables from here. But we have to go over the bridge and round by the road, so it's near half a mile further." "Has Mr. Barry any little girls? Well, not so very little either--about my size." "He's got one about eleven. Her name is Diana." "Oh!" with a long indrawing of breath. "What a perfectly lovely name!" "Well now, I dunno. There's something dreadful heathenish about it, seems to me. I'd ruther Jane or Mary or some sensible name like that. But when Diana was born there was a schoolmaster boarding there and they gave him the naming of her and he called her Diana." "I wish there had been a schoolmaster like that around when I was born, then. Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I'm always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jack-knife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge _did_ crumple up I'd want to _see_ it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me." When they had driven up the further hill and around a corner Matthew said: "We're pretty near home now. That's Green Gables over--" "Oh, don't tell me," she interrupted breathlessly, catching at his partially raised arm and shutting her eyes that she might not see his gesture.<|quote|>"Let me guess. I'm sure I'll guess right."</|quote|>She opened her eyes and looked about her. They were on the crest of a hill. The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight. To the west a dark church spire rose up against a marigold sky. Below was a little valley and beyond a long, gently-rising slope with snug farmsteads scattered along it. From one to another the child's eyes darted, eager and wistful. At last they lingered on one away to the left, far back from the road, dimly white with blossoming trees in the twilight of the surrounding woods. Over it, in the stainless southwest sky, a great crystal-white star was shining like a lamp of guidance and promise. "That's it, isn't it?" she said, pointing. Matthew slapped the reins on the sorrel's back delightedly. "Well now, you've guessed it! But I reckon Mrs. Spencer described it so's you could tell." "No, she didn't--really she didn't. All she said might just as well have been about most of those other places. I hadn't any real idea what it looked like. But just as soon as I saw it I felt it was home. Oh, it seems as if I must be in a dream. Do you know, my arm must be black and blue from the elbow up, for I've pinched myself so many times today. Every little while a horrible sickening feeling would come over me and I'd be so afraid it was all a dream. Then I'd pinch myself to see if it was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I'd better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching. But it _is_ real and we're nearly home." With a sigh of rapture she relapsed into silence. Matthew stirred uneasily. He felt glad that it would be Marilla and not he who would have to tell this waif of the world that the home she longed for was not to be hers after all. They drove over Lynde's Hollow, where it was already quite dark, but not so dark that Mrs. Rachel could not see them from her window vantage, and up the hill and into the long lane of Green Gables. By the time they arrived at the house Matthew was shrinking from the approaching revelation with an energy he did not understand. It was not of Marilla or himself he was thinking of the trouble this mistake was probably going to make for them, but of the child's disappointment. When he thought of that rapt light being quenched in her eyes he had an uncomfortable feeling that he was going to assist at murdering something--much the same feeling that came over him when he had to kill a lamb or calf or any other innocent little creature. The yard was quite dark as they turned into it and the poplar leaves were rustling silkily all round it. "Listen to the trees talking in their sleep," she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. "What nice dreams they must have!" Then, holding tightly to the carpet-bag which contained "all her worldly goods," she followed him into the house. CHAPTER III. Marilla Cuthbert is Surprised |MARILLA came briskly forward as Matthew opened the | Anne Of Green Gables |
"To contradict it?" | Miss Bartlett | Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." | I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her | possibility." "Oh, it's all right." "Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know." "I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. "Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different." "Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her | driver. I saw him looking through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth." Lucy shuddered a little. "We shall get the silly affair on our nerves if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of Cecil?" "We must think of every possibility." "Oh, it's all right." "Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know." "I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. "Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different." "Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her playfully. "You kind, anxious thing. What WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say, 'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!" Miss Bartlett sighed "I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and | haven't told Cecil or any one," she remarked, when she returned. "I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your money--all shillings, except two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely now." Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St. John ascending, which had been framed. "How dreadful!" she murmured, "how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse should come to hear of it from some other source." "Oh, no, Charlotte," said the girl, entering the battle. "George Emerson is all right, and what other source is there?" Miss Bartlett considered. "For instance, the driver. I saw him looking through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth." Lucy shuddered a little. "We shall get the silly affair on our nerves if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of Cecil?" "We must think of every possibility." "Oh, it's all right." "Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know." "I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. "Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different." "Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her playfully. "You kind, anxious thing. What WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say, 'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!" Miss Bartlett sighed "I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You will never forgive me." "Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't." For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with a teaspoon. "Dear, one moment--we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have you seen the young one yet?" "Yes, I have." "What happened?" "We met at the Rectory." "What line is he taking up?" "No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is | No, I don't see and I never shall see why Miss What's-her-name shouldn't pay that bob for the driver." "I had forgotten the driver," said Miss Bartlett, reddening. "Thank you, dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me change for half a crown?" "I'll get it," said the young hostess, rising with decision. "Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I'll get Euphemia to change it, and we'll start the whole thing again from the beginning." "Lucy--Lucy--what a nuisance I am!" protested Miss Bartlett, and followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite briskly: "Have you told him about him yet?" "No, I haven't," replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. "Let me see--a sovereign's worth of silver." She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett's sudden transitions were too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had been a ruse to surprise the soul. "No, I haven't told Cecil or any one," she remarked, when she returned. "I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your money--all shillings, except two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely now." Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St. John ascending, which had been framed. "How dreadful!" she murmured, "how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse should come to hear of it from some other source." "Oh, no, Charlotte," said the girl, entering the battle. "George Emerson is all right, and what other source is there?" Miss Bartlett considered. "For instance, the driver. I saw him looking through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth." Lucy shuddered a little. "We shall get the silly affair on our nerves if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of Cecil?" "We must think of every possibility." "Oh, it's all right." "Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know." "I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. "Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different." "Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her playfully. "You kind, anxious thing. What WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say, 'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!" Miss Bartlett sighed "I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You will never forgive me." "Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't." For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with a teaspoon. "Dear, one moment--we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have you seen the young one yet?" "Yes, I have." "What happened?" "We met at the Rectory." "What line is he taking up?" "No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really all right. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly? I do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won't be any nuisance, Charlotte." "Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion." Lucy paused. "Cecil said one day--and I thought it so profound--that there are two kinds of cads--the conscious and the subconscious." She paused again, to be sure of doing justice to Cecil's profundity. Through the window she saw Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a novel. It was a new one from Smith's library. Her mother must have returned from the station. "Once a cad, always a cad," droned Miss Bartlett. "What I mean by subconscious is that Emerson lost his head. I fell into all those violets, and he was silly and surprised. I don't think we ought to blame him very much. It makes such a difference when you see a person with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly. It really does; it makes an enormous difference, and he lost his head: he doesn't admire me, or any of that nonsense, one straw. Freddy rather likes him, and has asked him up here | of, Lucy, for the last half hour." "I do not feel myself an ordinary visitor," said Miss Bartlett, and looked at her frayed glove. "All right, if you'd really rather. Five shillings, and I gave a bob to the driver." Miss Bartlett looked in her purse. Only sovereigns and pennies. Could any one give her change? Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four half-crowns. Miss Bartlett accepted their moneys and then said: "But who am I to give the sovereign to?" "Let's leave it all till mother comes back," suggested Lucy. "No, dear; your mother may take quite a long drive now that she is not hampered with me. We all have our little foibles, and mine is the prompt settling of accounts." Here Freddy's friend, Mr. Floyd, made the one remark of his that need be quoted: he offered to toss Freddy for Miss Bartlett's quid. A solution seemed in sight, and even Cecil, who had been ostentatiously drinking his tea at the view, felt the eternal attraction of Chance, and turned round. But this did not do, either. "Please--please--I know I am a sad spoil-sport, but it would make me wretched. I should practically be robbing the one who lost." "Freddy owes me fifteen shillings," interposed Cecil. "So it will work out right if you give the pound to me." "Fifteen shillings," said Miss Bartlett dubiously. "How is that, Mr. Vyse?" "Because, don't you see, Freddy paid your cab. Give me the pound, and we shall avoid this deplorable gambling." Miss Bartlett, who was poor at figures, became bewildered and rendered up the sovereign, amidst the suppressed gurgles of the other youths. For a moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his peers. Then he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had marred the smiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying twaddle. "But I don't see that!" exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched the iniquitous transaction. "I don't see why Mr. Vyse is to have the quid." "Because of the fifteen shillings and the five," they said solemnly. "Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see." "But I don't see--" They tried to stifle her with cake. "No, thank you. I'm done. I don't see why--Freddy, don't poke me. Miss Honeychurch, your brother's hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd's ten shillings? Ow! No, I don't see and I never shall see why Miss What's-her-name shouldn't pay that bob for the driver." "I had forgotten the driver," said Miss Bartlett, reddening. "Thank you, dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me change for half a crown?" "I'll get it," said the young hostess, rising with decision. "Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I'll get Euphemia to change it, and we'll start the whole thing again from the beginning." "Lucy--Lucy--what a nuisance I am!" protested Miss Bartlett, and followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite briskly: "Have you told him about him yet?" "No, I haven't," replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. "Let me see--a sovereign's worth of silver." She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett's sudden transitions were too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had been a ruse to surprise the soul. "No, I haven't told Cecil or any one," she remarked, when she returned. "I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your money--all shillings, except two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely now." Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St. John ascending, which had been framed. "How dreadful!" she murmured, "how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse should come to hear of it from some other source." "Oh, no, Charlotte," said the girl, entering the battle. "George Emerson is all right, and what other source is there?" Miss Bartlett considered. "For instance, the driver. I saw him looking through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth." Lucy shuddered a little. "We shall get the silly affair on our nerves if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of Cecil?" "We must think of every possibility." "Oh, it's all right." "Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know." "I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. "Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different." "Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her playfully. "You kind, anxious thing. What WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say, 'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!" Miss Bartlett sighed "I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You will never forgive me." "Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't." For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with a teaspoon. "Dear, one moment--we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have you seen the young one yet?" "Yes, I have." "What happened?" "We met at the Rectory." "What line is he taking up?" "No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really all right. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly? I do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won't be any nuisance, Charlotte." "Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion." Lucy paused. "Cecil said one day--and I thought it so profound--that there are two kinds of cads--the conscious and the subconscious." She paused again, to be sure of doing justice to Cecil's profundity. Through the window she saw Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a novel. It was a new one from Smith's library. Her mother must have returned from the station. "Once a cad, always a cad," droned Miss Bartlett. "What I mean by subconscious is that Emerson lost his head. I fell into all those violets, and he was silly and surprised. I don't think we ought to blame him very much. It makes such a difference when you see a person with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly. It really does; it makes an enormous difference, and he lost his head: he doesn't admire me, or any of that nonsense, one straw. Freddy rather likes him, and has asked him up here on Sunday, so you can judge for yourself. He has improved; he doesn't always look as if he's going to burst into tears. He is a clerk in the General Manager's office at one of the big railways--not a porter! and runs down to his father for week-ends. Papa was to do with journalism, but is rheumatic and has retired. There! Now for the garden." She took hold of her guest by the arm. "Suppose we don't talk about this silly Italian business any more. We want you to have a nice restful visit at Windy Corner, with no worriting." Lucy thought this rather a good speech. The reader may have detected an unfortunate slip in it. Whether Miss Bartlett detected the slip one cannot say, for it is impossible to penetrate into the minds of elderly people. She might have spoken further, but they were interrupted by the entrance of her hostess. Explanations took place, and in the midst of them Lucy escaped, the images throbbing a little more vividly in her brain. Chapter XV: The Disaster Within The Sunday after Miss Bartlett's arrival was a glorious day, like most of the days of that year. In the Weald, autumn approached, breaking up the green monotony of summer, touching the parks with the grey bloom of mist, the beech-trees with russet, the oak-trees with gold. Up on the heights, battalions of black pines witnessed the change, themselves unchangeable. Either country was spanned by a cloudless sky, and in either arose the tinkle of church bells. The garden of Windy Corners was deserted except for a red book, which lay sunning itself upon the gravel path. From the house came incoherent sounds, as of females preparing for worship. "The men say they won't go"--" "Well, I don't blame them" "--Minnie says, "need she go?" "--"Tell her, no nonsense"--"Anne! Mary! Hook me behind!"--"Dearest Lucia, may I trespass upon you for a pin?" For Miss Bartlett had announced that she at all events was one for church. The sun rose higher on its journey, guided, not by Phaethon, but by Apollo, competent, unswerving, divine. Its rays fell on the ladies whenever they advanced towards the bedroom windows; on Mr. Beebe down at Summer Street as he smiled over a letter from Miss Catharine Alan; on George Emerson cleaning his father's boots; and lastly, to complete the catalogue of memorable things, on the | For a moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his peers. Then he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had marred the smiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying twaddle. "But I don't see that!" exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched the iniquitous transaction. "I don't see why Mr. Vyse is to have the quid." "Because of the fifteen shillings and the five," they said solemnly. "Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see." "But I don't see--" They tried to stifle her with cake. "No, thank you. I'm done. I don't see why--Freddy, don't poke me. Miss Honeychurch, your brother's hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd's ten shillings? Ow! No, I don't see and I never shall see why Miss What's-her-name shouldn't pay that bob for the driver." "I had forgotten the driver," said Miss Bartlett, reddening. "Thank you, dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me change for half a crown?" "I'll get it," said the young hostess, rising with decision. "Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I'll get Euphemia to change it, and we'll start the whole thing again from the beginning." "Lucy--Lucy--what a nuisance I am!" protested Miss Bartlett, and followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite briskly: "Have you told him about him yet?" "No, I haven't," replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. "Let me see--a sovereign's worth of silver." She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett's sudden transitions were too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had been a ruse to surprise the soul. "No, I haven't told Cecil or any one," she remarked, when she returned. "I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your money--all shillings, except two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely now." Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St. John ascending, which had been framed. "How dreadful!" she murmured, "how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse should come to hear of it from some other source." "Oh, no, Charlotte," said the girl, entering the battle. "George Emerson is all right, and what other source is there?" Miss Bartlett considered. "For instance, the driver. I saw him looking through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth." Lucy shuddered a little. "We shall get the silly affair on our nerves if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of Cecil?" "We must think of every possibility." "Oh, it's all right." "Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know." "I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it."<|quote|>"To contradict it?"</|quote|>"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. "Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different." "Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her playfully. "You kind, anxious thing. What WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say, 'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!" Miss Bartlett sighed "I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You will never forgive me." "Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't." For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with a teaspoon. "Dear, one moment--we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have you seen the young one yet?" "Yes, I have." "What happened?" "We met at the Rectory." "What line is he taking up?" "No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really all right. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly? I do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won't be any nuisance, Charlotte." "Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion." Lucy paused. "Cecil said | A Room With A View |
said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning, | No speaker | of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the | in silence as the consecration of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen." A long wicker basket | there, brimming but contained the tears of some profound emotion, happiness, grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the consecration of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen." A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. The | _do_ you want me to do?" For the first time their eyes met. "You wanted us to fall in love," Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read the certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised her. The tears rose slowly in Katharine s eyes and stood there, brimming but contained the tears of some profound emotion, happiness, grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the consecration of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen." A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. The maid s message had a curious effect upon Katharine. She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said emphatically and even tragically: "You know what that means." Cassandra had understood nothing. "Aunt Celia is in the kitchen," Katharine repeated. "Why in the kitchen?" Cassandra asked, not unnaturally. | from observation. She sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and apparently overcome by her thoughts. "D you know what time it is?" she said at length, and shook her pillow, as if making ready for sleep. Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her candle. Perhaps the white dressing-gown, and the loosened hair, and something unseeing in the expression of the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in her sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so. "There s no reason why I should go home, then?" Cassandra said, pausing. "Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What _do_ you want me to do?" For the first time their eyes met. "You wanted us to fall in love," Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read the certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised her. The tears rose slowly in Katharine s eyes and stood there, brimming but contained the tears of some profound emotion, happiness, grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the consecration of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen." A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. The maid s message had a curious effect upon Katharine. She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said emphatically and even tragically: "You know what that means." Cassandra had understood nothing. "Aunt Celia is in the kitchen," Katharine repeated. "Why in the kitchen?" Cassandra asked, not unnaturally. "Probably because she s discovered something," Katharine replied. Cassandra s thoughts flew to the subject of her preoccupation. "About us?" she inquired. "Heaven knows," Katharine replied. "I shan t let her stay in the kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here." The sternness with which this was said suggested that to bring Aunt Celia upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary measure. "For goodness sake, Katharine," Cassandra exclaimed, jumping from her chair and showing signs of agitation, "don t be rash. Don t let her suspect. Remember, nothing s certain" Katharine assured her by nodding her head several times, | any right to say such things, Katharine," Cassandra exclaimed. "Why do you say them? Don t you mind in the least how William behaves to other women? If I were engaged, I couldn t bear it!" "We re not engaged," said Katharine, after a pause. "Katharine!" Cassandra cried. "No, we re not engaged," Katharine repeated. "But no one knows it but ourselves." "But why I don t understand you re not engaged!" Cassandra said again. "Oh, that explains it! You re not in love with him! You don t want to marry him!" "We aren t in love with each other any longer," said Katharine, as if disposing of something for ever and ever. "How queer, how strange, how unlike other people you are, Katharine," Cassandra said, her whole body and voice seeming to fall and collapse together, and no trace of anger or excitement remaining, but only a dreamy quietude. "You re not in love with him?" "But I love him," said Katharine. Cassandra remained bowed, as if by the weight of the revelation, for some little while longer. Nor did Katharine speak. Her attitude was that of some one who wishes to be concealed as much as possible from observation. She sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and apparently overcome by her thoughts. "D you know what time it is?" she said at length, and shook her pillow, as if making ready for sleep. Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her candle. Perhaps the white dressing-gown, and the loosened hair, and something unseeing in the expression of the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in her sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so. "There s no reason why I should go home, then?" Cassandra said, pausing. "Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What _do_ you want me to do?" For the first time their eyes met. "You wanted us to fall in love," Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read the certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised her. The tears rose slowly in Katharine s eyes and stood there, brimming but contained the tears of some profound emotion, happiness, grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the consecration of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen." A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. The maid s message had a curious effect upon Katharine. She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said emphatically and even tragically: "You know what that means." Cassandra had understood nothing. "Aunt Celia is in the kitchen," Katharine repeated. "Why in the kitchen?" Cassandra asked, not unnaturally. "Probably because she s discovered something," Katharine replied. Cassandra s thoughts flew to the subject of her preoccupation. "About us?" she inquired. "Heaven knows," Katharine replied. "I shan t let her stay in the kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here." The sternness with which this was said suggested that to bring Aunt Celia upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary measure. "For goodness sake, Katharine," Cassandra exclaimed, jumping from her chair and showing signs of agitation, "don t be rash. Don t let her suspect. Remember, nothing s certain" Katharine assured her by nodding her head several times, but the manner in which she left the room was not calculated to inspire complete confidence in her diplomacy. Mrs. Milvain was sitting, or rather perching, upon the edge of a chair in the servants room. Whether there was any sound reason for her choice of a subterranean chamber, or whether it corresponded with the spirit of her quest, Mrs. Milvain invariably came in by the back door and sat in the servants room when she was engaged in confidential family transactions. The ostensible reason she gave was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hilbery should be disturbed. But, in truth, Mrs. Milvain depended even more than most elderly women of her generation upon the delicious emotions of intimacy, agony, and secrecy, and the additional thrill provided by the basement was one not lightly to be forfeited. She protested almost plaintively when Katharine proposed to go upstairs. "I ve something that I want to say to you in _private_," she said, hesitating reluctantly upon the threshold of her ambush. "The drawing-room is empty" "But we might meet your mother upon the stairs. We might disturb your father," Mrs. Milvain objected, taking the precaution to speak in a whisper already. But as | "Because I can t allow any man to behave to me in that way," Cassandra replied, and she added, "particularly when I know that he is engaged to some one else." "But you like him, don t you?" Katharine inquired. "That s got nothing to do with it," Cassandra exclaimed indignantly. "I consider his conduct, under the circumstances, most disgraceful." This was the last of the sentences of her premeditated speech; and having spoken it she was left unprovided with any more to say in that particular style. When Katharine remarked: "I should say it had everything to do with it," Cassandra s self-possession deserted her. "I don t understand you in the least, Katharine. How can you behave as you behave? Ever since I came here I ve been amazed by you!" "You ve enjoyed yourself, haven t you?" Katharine asked. "Yes, I have," Cassandra admitted. "Anyhow, my behavior hasn t spoiled your visit." "No," Cassandra allowed once more. She was completely at a loss. In her forecast of the interview she had taken it for granted that Katharine, after an outburst of incredulity, would agree that Cassandra must return home as soon as possible. But Katharine, on the contrary, accepted her statement at once, seemed neither shocked nor surprised, and merely looked rather more thoughtful than usual. From being a mature woman charged with an important mission, Cassandra shrunk to the stature of an inexperienced child. "Do you think I ve been very foolish about it?" she asked. Katharine made no answer, but still sat deliberating silently, and a certain feeling of alarm took possession of Cassandra. Perhaps her words had struck far deeper than she had thought, into depths beyond her reach, as so much of Katharine was beyond her reach. She thought suddenly that she had been playing with very dangerous tools. Looking at her at length, Katharine asked slowly, as if she found the question very difficult to ask. "But do you care for William?" She marked the agitation and bewilderment of the girl s expression, and how she looked away from her. "Do you mean, am I in love with him?" Cassandra asked, breathing quickly, and nervously moving her hands. "Yes, in love with him," Katharine repeated. "How can I love the man you re engaged to marry?" Cassandra burst out. "He may be in love with you." "I don t think you ve any right to say such things, Katharine," Cassandra exclaimed. "Why do you say them? Don t you mind in the least how William behaves to other women? If I were engaged, I couldn t bear it!" "We re not engaged," said Katharine, after a pause. "Katharine!" Cassandra cried. "No, we re not engaged," Katharine repeated. "But no one knows it but ourselves." "But why I don t understand you re not engaged!" Cassandra said again. "Oh, that explains it! You re not in love with him! You don t want to marry him!" "We aren t in love with each other any longer," said Katharine, as if disposing of something for ever and ever. "How queer, how strange, how unlike other people you are, Katharine," Cassandra said, her whole body and voice seeming to fall and collapse together, and no trace of anger or excitement remaining, but only a dreamy quietude. "You re not in love with him?" "But I love him," said Katharine. Cassandra remained bowed, as if by the weight of the revelation, for some little while longer. Nor did Katharine speak. Her attitude was that of some one who wishes to be concealed as much as possible from observation. She sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and apparently overcome by her thoughts. "D you know what time it is?" she said at length, and shook her pillow, as if making ready for sleep. Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her candle. Perhaps the white dressing-gown, and the loosened hair, and something unseeing in the expression of the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in her sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so. "There s no reason why I should go home, then?" Cassandra said, pausing. "Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What _do_ you want me to do?" For the first time their eyes met. "You wanted us to fall in love," Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read the certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised her. The tears rose slowly in Katharine s eyes and stood there, brimming but contained the tears of some profound emotion, happiness, grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the consecration of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen." A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. The maid s message had a curious effect upon Katharine. She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said emphatically and even tragically: "You know what that means." Cassandra had understood nothing. "Aunt Celia is in the kitchen," Katharine repeated. "Why in the kitchen?" Cassandra asked, not unnaturally. "Probably because she s discovered something," Katharine replied. Cassandra s thoughts flew to the subject of her preoccupation. "About us?" she inquired. "Heaven knows," Katharine replied. "I shan t let her stay in the kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here." The sternness with which this was said suggested that to bring Aunt Celia upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary measure. "For goodness sake, Katharine," Cassandra exclaimed, jumping from her chair and showing signs of agitation, "don t be rash. Don t let her suspect. Remember, nothing s certain" Katharine assured her by nodding her head several times, but the manner in which she left the room was not calculated to inspire complete confidence in her diplomacy. Mrs. Milvain was sitting, or rather perching, upon the edge of a chair in the servants room. Whether there was any sound reason for her choice of a subterranean chamber, or whether it corresponded with the spirit of her quest, Mrs. Milvain invariably came in by the back door and sat in the servants room when she was engaged in confidential family transactions. The ostensible reason she gave was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hilbery should be disturbed. But, in truth, Mrs. Milvain depended even more than most elderly women of her generation upon the delicious emotions of intimacy, agony, and secrecy, and the additional thrill provided by the basement was one not lightly to be forfeited. She protested almost plaintively when Katharine proposed to go upstairs. "I ve something that I want to say to you in _private_," she said, hesitating reluctantly upon the threshold of her ambush. "The drawing-room is empty" "But we might meet your mother upon the stairs. We might disturb your father," Mrs. Milvain objected, taking the precaution to speak in a whisper already. But as Katharine s presence was absolutely necessary to the success of the interview, and as Katharine obstinately receded up the kitchen stairs, Mrs. Milvain had no course but to follow her. She glanced furtively about her as she proceeded upstairs, drew her skirts together, and stepped with circumspection past all doors, whether they were open or shut. "Nobody will overhear us?" she murmured, when the comparative sanctuary of the drawing-room had been reached. "I see that I have interrupted you," she added, glancing at the flowers strewn upon the floor. A moment later she inquired, "Was some one sitting with you?" noticing a handkerchief that Cassandra had dropped in her flight. "Cassandra was helping me to put the flowers in water," said Katharine, and she spoke so firmly and clearly that Mrs. Milvain glanced nervously at the main door and then at the curtain which divided the little room with the relics from the drawing-room. "Ah, Cassandra is still with you," she remarked. "And did William send you those lovely flowers?" Katharine sat down opposite her aunt and said neither yes nor no. She looked past her, and it might have been thought that she was considering very critically the pattern of the curtains. Another advantage of the basement, from Mrs. Milvain s point of view, was that it made it necessary to sit very close together, and the light was dim compared with that which now poured through three windows upon Katharine and the basket of flowers, and gave even the slight angular figure of Mrs. Milvain herself a halo of gold. "They re from Stogdon House," said Katharine abruptly, with a little jerk of her head. Mrs. Milvain felt that it would be easier to tell her niece what she wished to say if they were actually in physical contact, for the spiritual distance between them was formidable. Katharine, however, made no overtures, and Mrs. Milvain, who was possessed of rash but heroic courage, plunged without preface: "People are talking about you, Katharine. That is why I have come this morning. You forgive me for saying what I d much rather not say? What I say is only for your own sake, my child." "There s nothing to forgive yet, Aunt Celia," said Katharine, with apparent good humor. "People are saying that William goes everywhere with you and Cassandra, and that he is always paying her attentions. At the | Cassandra burst out. "He may be in love with you." "I don t think you ve any right to say such things, Katharine," Cassandra exclaimed. "Why do you say them? Don t you mind in the least how William behaves to other women? If I were engaged, I couldn t bear it!" "We re not engaged," said Katharine, after a pause. "Katharine!" Cassandra cried. "No, we re not engaged," Katharine repeated. "But no one knows it but ourselves." "But why I don t understand you re not engaged!" Cassandra said again. "Oh, that explains it! You re not in love with him! You don t want to marry him!" "We aren t in love with each other any longer," said Katharine, as if disposing of something for ever and ever. "How queer, how strange, how unlike other people you are, Katharine," Cassandra said, her whole body and voice seeming to fall and collapse together, and no trace of anger or excitement remaining, but only a dreamy quietude. "You re not in love with him?" "But I love him," said Katharine. Cassandra remained bowed, as if by the weight of the revelation, for some little while longer. Nor did Katharine speak. Her attitude was that of some one who wishes to be concealed as much as possible from observation. She sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and apparently overcome by her thoughts. "D you know what time it is?" she said at length, and shook her pillow, as if making ready for sleep. Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her candle. Perhaps the white dressing-gown, and the loosened hair, and something unseeing in the expression of the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in her sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so. "There s no reason why I should go home, then?" Cassandra said, pausing. "Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What _do_ you want me to do?" For the first time their eyes met. "You wanted us to fall in love," Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read the certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised her. The tears rose slowly in Katharine s eyes and stood there, brimming but contained the tears of some profound emotion, happiness, grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the consecration of her love. "Please, miss,"<|quote|>said the maid, about eleven o clock on the following morning,</|quote|>"Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen." A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. The maid s message had a curious effect upon Katharine. She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said emphatically and even tragically: "You know what that means." Cassandra had understood nothing. "Aunt Celia is in the kitchen," Katharine repeated. "Why in the kitchen?" Cassandra asked, not unnaturally. "Probably because she s discovered something," Katharine replied. Cassandra s thoughts flew to the subject of her preoccupation. "About us?" she inquired. "Heaven knows," Katharine replied. "I shan t let her stay in the kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here." The sternness with which this was said suggested that to bring Aunt Celia upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary measure. "For goodness sake, Katharine," Cassandra exclaimed, jumping from her chair and showing signs of agitation, "don t be rash. Don t let her suspect. Remember, nothing s certain" Katharine assured her by nodding her head several times, but the manner in which she left the room was not calculated to inspire complete confidence in her diplomacy. Mrs. Milvain was sitting, or rather perching, upon the edge of a chair in the servants room. Whether there was any sound reason for her choice of a subterranean chamber, or whether it corresponded with the spirit of her quest, Mrs. Milvain invariably came in by the back door and sat in the servants room when she was engaged in confidential family transactions. The ostensible reason she gave was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hilbery should be disturbed. But, in truth, Mrs. Milvain depended even more than most elderly women of her generation upon the delicious emotions of intimacy, agony, and secrecy, and the additional thrill provided by the basement was one not lightly to be forfeited. She protested almost plaintively when Katharine proposed to go upstairs. "I ve something that I want to | Night And Day |
"It is never too late," | Rose Maylie | late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and | sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and atonement." "It is," cried the | sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and atonement." "It is," cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; "I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death." "Why should you be?" asked Rose. "Nothing could save him," cried the girl. "If I told others what I have told you, | not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things." "Lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and atonement." "It is," cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; "I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death." "Why should you be?" asked Rose. "Nothing could save him," cried the girl. "If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!" "Is it possible," cried Rose, "that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is madness." "I don't | you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that I can't leave: no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now." "Your having interfered in this dear boy's behalf before," said Rose; "your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed. Oh!" said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, "do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things." "Lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and atonement." "It is," cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; "I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death." "Why should you be?" asked Rose. "Nothing could save him," cried the girl. "If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!" "Is it possible," cried Rose, "that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is madness." "I don't know what it is," answered the girl; "I only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. I must go back. Whether it is God's wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last." "What am I to do?" said Rose. "I should not let you depart from me thus." "You should, lady, | had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was." "You do not mean," said Rose, turning very pale, "to tell me that this was said in earnest?" "He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did," replied the girl, shaking her head. "He is an earnest man when his hatred is up. I know many who do worse things; but I'd rather listen to them all a dozen times, than to that Monks once. It is growing late, and I have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. I must get back quickly." "But what can I do?" said Rose. "To what use can I turn this communication without you? Back! Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colors? If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour's delay." "I wish to go back," said the girl. "I must go back, because how can I tell such things to an innocent lady like you? because among the men I have told you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that I can't leave: no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now." "Your having interfered in this dear boy's behalf before," said Rose; "your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed. Oh!" said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, "do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things." "Lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and atonement." "It is," cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; "I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death." "Why should you be?" asked Rose. "Nothing could save him," cried the girl. "If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!" "Is it possible," cried Rose, "that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is madness." "I don't know what it is," answered the girl; "I only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. I must go back. Whether it is God's wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last." "What am I to do?" said Rose. "I should not let you depart from me thus." "You should, lady, and I know you will," rejoined the girl, rising. "You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness, and forced no promise from you, as I might have done." "Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?" said Rose. "This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?" "You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret, and advise you what to do," rejoined the girl. "But where can I find you again when it is necessary?" asked Rose. "I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?" "Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and come alone, or with the only other person that knows it; and that I shall not be watched or followed?" asked the girl. "I promise you solemnly," answered Rose. "Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve," said the girl without hesitation, "I will walk on London Bridge if I am alive." "Stay another moment," interposed Rose, | of finding out," said the girl; "and there are not many people besides me that could have got out of their way in time to escape discovery. But I did; and I saw him no more till last night." "And what occurred then?" "I'll tell you, lady. Last night he came again. Again they went upstairs, and I, wrapping myself up so that my shadow would not betray me, again listened at the door. The first words I heard Monks say were these:" So the only proofs of the boy's identity lie at the bottom of the river, and the old hag that received them from the mother is rotting in her coffin.' "They laughed, and talked of his success in doing this; and Monks, talking on about the boy, and getting very wild, said that though he had got the young devil's money safely now, he'd rather have had it the other way; for, what a game it would have been to have brought down the boast of the father's will, by driving him through every jail in town, and then hauling him up for some capital felony which Fagin could easily manage, after having made a good profit of him besides." "What is all this!" said Rose. "The truth, lady, though it comes from my lips," replied the girl. "Then, he said, with oaths common enough in my ears, but strange to yours, that if he could gratify his hatred by taking the boy's life without bringing his own neck in danger, he would; but, as he couldn't, he'd be upon the watch to meet him at every turn in life; and if he took advantage of his birth and history, he might harm him yet." In short, Fagin,' "he says," Jew as you are, you never laid such snares as I'll contrive for my young brother, Oliver.'" "His brother!" exclaimed Rose. "Those were his words," said Nancy, glancing uneasily round, as she had scarcely ceased to do, since she began to speak, for a vision of Sikes haunted her perpetually. "And more. When he spoke of you and the other lady, and said it seemed contrived by Heaven, or the devil, against him, that Oliver should come into your hands, he laughed, and said there was some comfort in that too, for how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds would you not give, if you had them, to know who your two-legged spaniel was." "You do not mean," said Rose, turning very pale, "to tell me that this was said in earnest?" "He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did," replied the girl, shaking her head. "He is an earnest man when his hatred is up. I know many who do worse things; but I'd rather listen to them all a dozen times, than to that Monks once. It is growing late, and I have to reach home without suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. I must get back quickly." "But what can I do?" said Rose. "To what use can I turn this communication without you? Back! Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colors? If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour's delay." "I wish to go back," said the girl. "I must go back, because how can I tell such things to an innocent lady like you? because among the men I have told you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that I can't leave: no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now." "Your having interfered in this dear boy's behalf before," said Rose; "your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed. Oh!" said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, "do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things." "Lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and atonement." "It is," cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; "I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death." "Why should you be?" asked Rose. "Nothing could save him," cried the girl. "If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!" "Is it possible," cried Rose, "that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is madness." "I don't know what it is," answered the girl; "I only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. I must go back. Whether it is God's wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last." "What am I to do?" said Rose. "I should not let you depart from me thus." "You should, lady, and I know you will," rejoined the girl, rising. "You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness, and forced no promise from you, as I might have done." "Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?" said Rose. "This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?" "You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret, and advise you what to do," rejoined the girl. "But where can I find you again when it is necessary?" asked Rose. "I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?" "Will you promise me that you will have my secret strictly kept, and come alone, or with the only other person that knows it; and that I shall not be watched or followed?" asked the girl. "I promise you solemnly," answered Rose. "Every Sunday night, from eleven until the clock strikes twelve," said the girl without hesitation, "I will walk on London Bridge if I am alive." "Stay another moment," interposed Rose, as the girl moved hurriedly towards the door. "Think once again on your own condition, and the opportunity you have of escaping from it. You have a claim on me: not only as the voluntary bearer of this intelligence, but as a woman lost almost beyond redemption. Will you return to this gang of robbers, and to this man, when a word can save you? What fascination is it that can take you back, and make you cling to wickedness and misery? Oh! is there no chord in your heart that I can touch! Is there nothing left, to which I can appeal against this terrible infatuation!" "When ladies as young, and good, and beautiful as you are," replied the girl steadily, "give away your hearts, love will carry you all lengths even such as you, who have home, friends, other admirers, everything, to fill them. When such as I, who have no certain roof but the coffinlid, and no friend in sickness or death but the hospital nurse, set our rotten hearts on any man, and let him fill the place that has been a blank through all our wretched lives, who can hope to cure us? Pity us, lady pity us for having only one feeling of the woman left, and for having that turned, by a heavy judgment, from a comfort and a pride, into a new means of violence and suffering." "You will," said Rose, after a pause, "take some money from me, which may enable you to live without dishonesty at all events until we meet again?" "Not a penny," replied the girl, waving her hand. "Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you," said Rose, stepping gently forward. "I wish to serve you indeed." "You would serve me best, lady," replied the girl, wringing her hands, "if you could take my life at once; for I have felt more grief to think of what I am, to-night, than I ever did before, and it would be something not to die in the hell in which I have lived. God bless you, sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought shame on mine!" Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away; while Rose Maylie, overpowered by this extraordinary interview, which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurrence, sank | suspicion of having been on such an errand as this. I must get back quickly." "But what can I do?" said Rose. "To what use can I turn this communication without you? Back! Why do you wish to return to companions you paint in such terrible colors? If you repeat this information to a gentleman whom I can summon in an instant from the next room, you can be consigned to some place of safety without half an hour's delay." "I wish to go back," said the girl. "I must go back, because how can I tell such things to an innocent lady like you? because among the men I have told you of, there is one: the most desperate among them all; that I can't leave: no, not even to be saved from the life I am leading now." "Your having interfered in this dear boy's behalf before," said Rose; "your coming here, at so great a risk, to tell me what you have heard; your manner, which convinces me of the truth of what you say; your evident contrition, and sense of shame; all lead me to believe that you might yet be reclaimed. Oh!" said the earnest girl, folding her hands as the tears coursed down her face, "do not turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of one of your own sex; the first the first, I do believe, who ever appealed to you in the voice of pity and compassion. Do hear my words, and let me save you yet, for better things." "Lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these, and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"<|quote|>"It is never too late,"</|quote|>said Rose, "for penitence and atonement." "It is," cried the girl, writhing in agony of her mind; "I cannot leave him now! I could not be his death." "Why should you be?" asked Rose. "Nothing could save him," cried the girl. "If I told others what I have told you, and led to their being taken, he would be sure to die. He is the boldest, and has been so cruel!" "Is it possible," cried Rose, "that for such a man as this, you can resign every future hope, and the certainty of immediate rescue? It is madness." "I don't know what it is," answered the girl; "I only know that it is so, and not with me alone, but with hundreds of others as bad and wretched as myself. I must go back. Whether it is God's wrath for the wrong I have done, I do not know; but I am drawn back to him through every suffering and ill usage; and I should be, I believe, if I knew that I was to die by his hand at last." "What am I to do?" said Rose. "I should not let you depart from me thus." "You should, lady, and I know you will," rejoined the girl, rising. "You will not stop my going because I have trusted in your goodness, and forced no promise from you, as I might have done." "Of what use, then, is the communication you have made?" said Rose. "This mystery must be investigated, or how will its disclosure to me, benefit Oliver, whom you are anxious to serve?" "You must have some kind gentleman about you that will hear it as a secret, and advise you what to do," rejoined the girl. "But where can I find you again when it is necessary?" asked Rose. "I do not seek to know where these dreadful people live, but where will you be walking or passing at any settled period from this time?" "Will you promise me that you will have my | Oliver Twist |
"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?" | Lydia | sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I | sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too | with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we | flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid you know that something would happen to put | were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think, than such as did not. Wickham's affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid you know that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat." "Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all | like your going such a way off. Must it be so?" "Oh, lord! yes;--there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all." "I should like it beyond any thing!" said her mother. "And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over." "I thank you for my share of the favour," said Elizabeth; "but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands." Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight. No one but Mrs. Bennet, regretted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time, by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think, than such as did not. Wickham's affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid you know that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat." "Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or any thing. To be sure London was rather thin, but however the little Theatre was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards, that if he _had_ been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well." "Mr. Darcy!" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. "Oh, yes!--he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so | seems but a fortnight I declare; and yet there have been things enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was." Her father lifted up his eyes. Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw any thing of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, "Oh! mamma, do the people here abouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side glass next to him, and took off my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like any thing." Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining-parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, "Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman." It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment, from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Philips, the Lucases, and all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called "Mrs. Wickham," by each of them; and in the mean time, she went after dinner to shew her ring and boast of being married, to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids. "Well, mamma," said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast room, "and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go." "Very true; and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Lydia, I don't at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?" "Oh, lord! yes;--there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all." "I should like it beyond any thing!" said her mother. "And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over." "I thank you for my share of the favour," said Elizabeth; "but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands." Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight. No one but Mrs. Bennet, regretted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time, by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think, than such as did not. Wickham's affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid you know that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat." "Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or any thing. To be sure London was rather thin, but however the little Theatre was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards, that if he _had_ been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well." "Mr. Darcy!" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. "Oh, yes!--he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!" "If it was to be secret," said Jane, "say not another word on the subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further." "Oh! certainly," said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; "we will ask you no questions." "Thank you," said Lydia, "for if you did, I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham would be angry." On such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her power, by running away. But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at her sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go. Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her brain; but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She could not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper, wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what Lydia had dropt, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been intended. "You may readily comprehend," she added, "what my curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively speaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it--unless it is, for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with ignorance." "Not that I _shall_ though," she added to herself, as she finished the letter; "and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out." Jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad of it;--till it appeared whether her inquiries would receive any satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante. CHAPTER X. Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter, as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it, than hurrying into the | Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight. No one but Mrs. Bennet, regretted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time, by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think, than such as did not. Wickham's affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,<|quote|>"Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?"</|quote|>"No really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid you know that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat." "Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or any thing. To be sure London was rather thin, but however the little Theatre was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards, that if he _had_ been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well." "Mr. Darcy!" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. "Oh, yes!--he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!" "If it was to be secret," said Jane, "say not another word on the subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further." "Oh! certainly," said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; "we will ask you no questions." "Thank you," said Lydia, "for if you did, I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham | Pride And Prejudice |
"Bill, Bill!" | Fagin | and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. | the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. "A word. Only a word." | ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did she gave him a drink of laudanum." "Hell's fire!" cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. "Let me go!" Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. "A word. Only a word." The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up. "Let me out," said Sikes. "Don't speak to | more of the man she had told them of before? Tell him that, tell him that." "Why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to," said Noah; "and so the first time she went to see the lady, she ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did she gave him a drink of laudanum." "Hell's fire!" cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. "Let me go!" Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. "A word. Only a word." The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up. "Let me out," said Sikes. "Don't speak to me; it's not safe. Let me out, I say!" "Hear me speak a word," rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. "You won't be" "Well," replied the other. "You won't be too violent, Bill?" The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each | replied Noah, considering. "Why I told yer that before." "Again. Tell it again!" cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips. "They asked her," said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to have a dawning perception who Sikes was, "they asked her why she didn't come, last Sunday, as she promised. She said she couldn't." "Why why? Tell him that." "Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told them of before," replied Noah. "What more of him?" cried Fagin. "What more of the man she had told them of before? Tell him that, tell him that." "Why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to," said Noah; "and so the first time she went to see the lady, she ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did she gave him a drink of laudanum." "Hell's fire!" cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. "Let me go!" Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. "A word. Only a word." The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up. "Let me out," said Sikes. "Don't speak to me; it's not safe. Let me out, I say!" "Hear me speak a word," rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. "You won't be" "Well," replied the other. "You won't be too violent, Bill?" The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each other's faces. They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. "I mean," said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless, "not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not too bold." Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Fagin had turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets. Without one pause, or moment's consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before | heavy yawn, looked sleepily about him. "Tell me that again once again, just for him to hear," said the Jew, pointing to Sikes as he spoke. "Tell yer what?" asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himself pettishly. "That about _Nancy_," said Fagin, clutching Sikes by the wrist, as if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough. "You followed her?" "Yes." "To London Bridge?" "Yes." "Where she met two people." "So she did." "A gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before, who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first, which she did and to describe him, which she did and to tell her what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did and where it could be best watched from, which she did and what time the people went there, which she did. She did all this. She told it all every word without a threat, without a murmur she did did she not?" cried Fagin, half mad with fury. "All right," replied Noah, scratching his head. "That's just what it was!" "What did they say, about last Sunday?" "About last Sunday!" replied Noah, considering. "Why I told yer that before." "Again. Tell it again!" cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips. "They asked her," said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to have a dawning perception who Sikes was, "they asked her why she didn't come, last Sunday, as she promised. She said she couldn't." "Why why? Tell him that." "Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told them of before," replied Noah. "What more of him?" cried Fagin. "What more of the man she had told them of before? Tell him that, tell him that." "Why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to," said Noah; "and so the first time she went to see the lady, she ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did she gave him a drink of laudanum." "Hell's fire!" cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. "Let me go!" Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. "A word. Only a word." The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up. "Let me out," said Sikes. "Don't speak to me; it's not safe. Let me out, I say!" "Hear me speak a word," rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. "You won't be" "Well," replied the other. "You won't be too violent, Bill?" The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each other's faces. They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. "I mean," said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless, "not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not too bold." Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Fagin had turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets. Without one pause, or moment's consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his own door. He opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed. The girl was lying, half-dressed, upon it. He had roused her from her sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startled look. "Get up!" said the man. "It is you, Bill!" said the girl, with an expression of pleasure at his return. "It is," was the reply. "Get up." There was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it from the candlestick, and hurled it under the grate. Seeing the faint light of early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain. "Let it be," said Sikes, thrusting his hand before her. "There's enough light for wot I've got to do." "Bill," said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, "why do you look like that at me!" The robber sat regarding | us by, and the crib where we might be most easily taken. Suppose he was to do all this, and besides to blow upon a plant we've all been in, more or less of his own fancy; not grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson and brought to it on bread and water, but of his own fancy; to please his own taste; stealing out at nights to find those most interested against us, and peaching to them. Do you hear me?" cried the Jew, his eyes flashing with rage. "Suppose he did all this, what then?" "What then!" replied Sikes; with a tremendous oath. "If he was left alive till I came, I'd grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot into as many grains as there are hairs upon his head." "What if I did it!" cried Fagin almost in a yell. "I, that knows so much, and could hang so many besides myself!" "I don't know," replied Sikes, clenching his teeth and turning white at the mere suggestion. "I'd do something in the jail that 'ud get me put in irons; and if I was tried along with you, I'd fall upon you with them in the open court, and beat your brains out afore the people. I should have such strength," muttered the robber, poising his brawny arm, "that I could smash your head as if a loaded waggon had gone over it." "You would?" "Would I!" said the housebreaker. "Try me." "If it was Charley, or the Dodger, or Bet, or" "I don't care who," replied Sikes impatiently. "Whoever it was, I'd serve them the same." Fagin looked hard at the robber; and, motioning him to be silent, stooped over the bed upon the floor, and shook the sleeper to rouse him. Sikes leant forward in his chair: looking on with his hands upon his knees, as if wondering much what all this questioning and preparation was to end in. "Bolter, Bolter! Poor lad!" said Fagin, looking up with an expression of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and with marked emphasis. "He's tired tired with watching for her so long, watching for _her_, Bill." "Wot d'ye mean?" asked Sikes, drawing back. Fagin made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again, hauled him into a sitting posture. When his assumed name had been repeated several times, Noah rubbed his eyes, and, giving a heavy yawn, looked sleepily about him. "Tell me that again once again, just for him to hear," said the Jew, pointing to Sikes as he spoke. "Tell yer what?" asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himself pettishly. "That about _Nancy_," said Fagin, clutching Sikes by the wrist, as if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough. "You followed her?" "Yes." "To London Bridge?" "Yes." "Where she met two people." "So she did." "A gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before, who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first, which she did and to describe him, which she did and to tell her what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did and where it could be best watched from, which she did and what time the people went there, which she did. She did all this. She told it all every word without a threat, without a murmur she did did she not?" cried Fagin, half mad with fury. "All right," replied Noah, scratching his head. "That's just what it was!" "What did they say, about last Sunday?" "About last Sunday!" replied Noah, considering. "Why I told yer that before." "Again. Tell it again!" cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips. "They asked her," said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to have a dawning perception who Sikes was, "they asked her why she didn't come, last Sunday, as she promised. She said she couldn't." "Why why? Tell him that." "Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told them of before," replied Noah. "What more of him?" cried Fagin. "What more of the man she had told them of before? Tell him that, tell him that." "Why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to," said Noah; "and so the first time she went to see the lady, she ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did she gave him a drink of laudanum." "Hell's fire!" cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. "Let me go!" Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. "A word. Only a word." The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up. "Let me out," said Sikes. "Don't speak to me; it's not safe. Let me out, I say!" "Hear me speak a word," rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. "You won't be" "Well," replied the other. "You won't be too violent, Bill?" The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each other's faces. They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. "I mean," said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless, "not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not too bold." Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Fagin had turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets. Without one pause, or moment's consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his own door. He opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed. The girl was lying, half-dressed, upon it. He had roused her from her sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startled look. "Get up!" said the man. "It is you, Bill!" said the girl, with an expression of pleasure at his return. "It is," was the reply. "Get up." There was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it from the candlestick, and hurled it under the grate. Seeing the faint light of early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain. "Let it be," said Sikes, thrusting his hand before her. "There's enough light for wot I've got to do." "Bill," said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, "why do you look like that at me!" The robber sat regarding her, for a few seconds, with dilated nostrils and heaving breast; and then, grasping her by the head and throat, dragged her into the middle of the room, and looking once towards the door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth. "Bill, Bill!" gasped the girl, wrestling with the strength of mortal fear, "I I won't scream or cry not once hear me speak to me tell me what I have done!" "You know, you she devil!" returned the robber, suppressing his breath. "You were watched to-night; every word you said was heard." "Then spare my life for the love of Heaven, as I spared yours," rejoined the girl, clinging to him. "Bill, dear Bill, you cannot have the heart to kill me. Oh! think of all I have given up, only this one night, for you. You _shall_ have time to think, and save yourself this crime; I will not loose my hold, you cannot throw me off. Bill, Bill, for dear God's sake, for your own, for mine, stop before you spill my blood! I have been true to you, upon my guilty soul I have!" The man struggled violently, to release his arms; but those of the girl were clasped round his, and tear her as he would, he could not tear them away. "Bill," cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast, "the gentleman and that dear lady, told me to-night of a home in some foreign country where I could end my days in solitude and peace. Let me see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to show the same mercy and goodness to you; and let us both leave this dreadful place, and far apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived, except in prayers, and never see each other more. It is never too late to repent. They told me so I feel it now but we must have time a little, little time!" The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. The certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own. She staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with | with an expression of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and with marked emphasis. "He's tired tired with watching for her so long, watching for _her_, Bill." "Wot d'ye mean?" asked Sikes, drawing back. Fagin made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again, hauled him into a sitting posture. When his assumed name had been repeated several times, Noah rubbed his eyes, and, giving a heavy yawn, looked sleepily about him. "Tell me that again once again, just for him to hear," said the Jew, pointing to Sikes as he spoke. "Tell yer what?" asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himself pettishly. "That about _Nancy_," said Fagin, clutching Sikes by the wrist, as if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough. "You followed her?" "Yes." "To London Bridge?" "Yes." "Where she met two people." "So she did." "A gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before, who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first, which she did and to describe him, which she did and to tell her what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did and where it could be best watched from, which she did and what time the people went there, which she did. She did all this. She told it all every word without a threat, without a murmur she did did she not?" cried Fagin, half mad with fury. "All right," replied Noah, scratching his head. "That's just what it was!" "What did they say, about last Sunday?" "About last Sunday!" replied Noah, considering. "Why I told yer that before." "Again. Tell it again!" cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips. "They asked her," said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to have a dawning perception who Sikes was, "they asked her why she didn't come, last Sunday, as she promised. She said she couldn't." "Why why? Tell him that." "Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told them of before," replied Noah. "What more of him?" cried Fagin. "What more of the man she had told them of before? Tell him that, tell him that." "Why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to," said Noah; "and so the first time she went to see the lady, she ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did she gave him a drink of laudanum." "Hell's fire!" cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. "Let me go!" Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs.<|quote|>"Bill, Bill!"</|quote|>cried Fagin, following him hastily. "A word. Only a word." The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up. "Let me out," said Sikes. "Don't speak to me; it's not safe. Let me out, I say!" "Hear me speak a word," rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. "You won't be" "Well," replied the other. "You won't be too violent, Bill?" The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each other's faces. They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. "I mean," said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless, "not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not too bold." Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Fagin had turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets. Without one pause, or moment's consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his own door. He opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the | Oliver Twist |
said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. | No speaker | that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be | is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will | same. And now tell me reach me the matches, like a good boy thanks what are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?" Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. "Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I | you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me." "People like you the wilful sunbeams of life don t commit crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell me reach me the matches, like a good boy thanks what are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?" Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. "Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?" "Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him | different an actress is! Harry! why didn t you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an actress?" "Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian." "Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces." "Don t run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry. "I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane." "You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me everything you do." "Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me." "People like you the wilful sunbeams of life don t commit crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell me reach me the matches, like a good boy thanks what are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?" Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. "Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?" "Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something." "I am not surprised." "Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought." | do love her. She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover s lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one s imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didn t you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an actress?" "Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian." "Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces." "Don t run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry. "I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane." "You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me everything you do." "Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me." "People like you the wilful sunbeams of life don t commit crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell me reach me the matches, like a good boy thanks what are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?" Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. "Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?" "Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something." "I am not surprised." "Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought." "I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all expensive." "Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," laughed Dorian. "By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre, and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly recommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that I was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He told me once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely due to" The Bard, "as he insisted on calling him. He seemed to think it a distinction." "It was a distinction, my dear Dorian a great distinction. Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one s self over poetry is an honour. But when did you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?" "The third night. She had been playing | enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, _les grandp res ont toujours tort_." "This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. I must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, in a sort of way. At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act. There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the drop-scene was drawn up and the play began. Romeo was a stout elderly gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure like a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad. He was played by the low-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most friendly terms with the pit. They were both as grotesque as the scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a little, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you, Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came across me. And her voice I never heard such a voice. It was very low at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one s ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a distant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. There were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear them, and each of them says something different. I don t know which to follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover s lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one s imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didn t you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an actress?" "Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian." "Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces." "Don t run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry. "I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane." "You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me everything you do." "Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me." "People like you the wilful sunbeams of life don t commit crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell me reach me the matches, like a good boy thanks what are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?" Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. "Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?" "Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something." "I am not surprised." "Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought." "I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all expensive." "Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," laughed Dorian. "By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre, and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly recommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that I was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He told me once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely due to" The Bard, "as he insisted on calling him. He seemed to think it a distinction." "It was a distinction, my dear Dorian a great distinction. Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one s self over poetry is an honour. But when did you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?" "The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. I could not help going round. I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at me at least I fancied that she had. The old Jew was persistent. He seemed determined to take me behind, so I consented. It was curious my not wanting to know her, wasn t it?" "No; I don t think so." "My dear Harry, why?" "I will tell you some other time. Now I want to know about the girl." "Sibyl? Oh, she was so shy and so gentle. There is something of a child about her. Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious of her power. I think we were both rather nervous. The old Jew stood grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like children. He would insist on calling me" My Lord, "so I had to assure Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to me," You look more like a prince. I must call you Prince Charming. " "Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments." "You don t understand her, Harry. She regarded me merely as a person in a play. She knows nothing of life. She lives with her mother, a faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta dressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen better days." "I know that look. It depresses me," murmured Lord Henry, examining his rings. "The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest me." "You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about other people s tragedies." "Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came from? From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and entirely divine. Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every night she is more marvellous." "That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now. I thought you must have some curious romance on hand. You have; but it is not quite what I expected." "My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have been | in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didn t you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an actress?" "Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian." "Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces." "Don t run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry. "I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane." "You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me everything you do." "Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would come and confess it to you. You would understand me." "People like you the wilful sunbeams of life don t commit crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell me reach me the matches, like a good boy thanks what are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?" Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. "Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,"<|quote|>said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.</|quote|>"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?" "Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something." "I am not surprised." "Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought." "I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all expensive." "Well, | The Picture Of Dorian Gray |
said Lady Middleton to Lucy, | No speaker | round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to | up in preparation for a round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria s | it. They quitted it only with the removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria s basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the dear little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I hope she will not much mind | thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of engaging Lucy s attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria s basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the dear little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I hope she will not much mind it." This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied, "Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have been at my filigree already. I would not disappoint the little angel for | tranquil and well-bred direction of Lady Middleton than when her husband united them together in one noisy purpose, immediately accepted the invitation; Margaret, with her mother s permission, was equally compliant, and Marianne, though always unwilling to join any of their parties, was persuaded by her mother, who could not bear to have her seclude herself from any chance of amusement, to go likewise. The young ladies went, and Lady Middleton was happily preserved from the frightful solitude which had threatened her. The insipidity of the meeting was exactly such as Elinor had expected; it produced not one novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of engaging Lucy s attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria s basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the dear little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I hope she will not much mind it." This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied, "Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have been at my filigree already. I would not disappoint the little angel for all the world: and if you want me at the card-table now, I am resolved to finish the basket after supper." "You are very good, I hope it won t hurt your eyes will you ring the bell for some working candles? My poor little girl would be sadly disappointed, I know, if the basket was not finished tomorrow, for though I told her it certainly would not, I am sure she depends upon having it done." Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could | where they might most easily separate themselves from the others; and though they met at least every other evening either at the park or cottage, and chiefly at the former, they could not be supposed to meet for the sake of conversation. Such a thought would never enter either Sir John or Lady Middleton s head; and therefore very little leisure was ever given for a general chat, and none at all for particular discourse. They met for the sake of eating, drinking, and laughing together, playing at cards, or consequences, or any other game that was sufficiently noisy. One or two meetings of this kind had taken place, without affording Elinor any chance of engaging Lucy in private, when Sir John called at the cottage one morning, to beg, in the name of charity, that they would all dine with Lady Middleton that day, as he was obliged to attend the club at Exeter, and she would otherwise be quite alone, except her mother and the two Miss Steeles. Elinor, who foresaw a fairer opening for the point she had in view, in such a party as this was likely to be, more at liberty among themselves under the tranquil and well-bred direction of Lady Middleton than when her husband united them together in one noisy purpose, immediately accepted the invitation; Margaret, with her mother s permission, was equally compliant, and Marianne, though always unwilling to join any of their parties, was persuaded by her mother, who could not bear to have her seclude herself from any chance of amusement, to go likewise. The young ladies went, and Lady Middleton was happily preserved from the frightful solitude which had threatened her. The insipidity of the meeting was exactly such as Elinor had expected; it produced not one novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of engaging Lucy s attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria s basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the dear little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I hope she will not much mind it." This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied, "Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have been at my filigree already. I would not disappoint the little angel for all the world: and if you want me at the card-table now, I am resolved to finish the basket after supper." "You are very good, I hope it won t hurt your eyes will you ring the bell for some working candles? My poor little girl would be sadly disappointed, I know, if the basket was not finished tomorrow, for though I told her it certainly would not, I am sure she depends upon having it done." Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste no greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child. Lady Middleton proposed a rubber of Casino to the others. No one made any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to the forms of general civility, exclaimed, "Your Ladyship will have the goodness to excuse _me_ you know I detest cards. I shall go to the piano-forte; I have not touched it since it was tuned." And without farther ceremony, she turned away and walked to the instrument. Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that _she_ had never made so rude a speech. "Marianne can never keep long from that instrument you know, ma am," said Elinor, endeavouring to smooth away the offence; "and I do not much wonder at it; for it is the very best toned piano-forte I ever heard." The remaining five were now to draw their cards. "Perhaps," continued Elinor, "if I should happen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be impossible I think for her labour singly, to finish | had suffered from her first conversation with Lucy on the subject, she soon felt an earnest wish of renewing it; and this for more reasons than one. She wanted to hear many particulars of their engagement repeated again, she wanted more clearly to understand what Lucy really felt for Edward, whether there were any sincerity in her declaration of tender regard for him, and she particularly wanted to convince Lucy, by her readiness to enter on the matter again, and her calmness in conversing on it, that she was no otherwise interested in it than as a friend, which she very much feared her involuntary agitation, in their morning discourse, must have left at least doubtful. That Lucy was disposed to be jealous of her appeared very probable: it was plain that Edward had always spoken highly in her praise, not merely from Lucy s assertion, but from her venturing to trust her on so short a personal acquaintance, with a secret so confessedly and evidently important. And even Sir John s joking intelligence must have had some weight. But indeed, while Elinor remained so well assured within herself of being really beloved by Edward, it required no other consideration of probabilities to make it natural that Lucy should be jealous; and that she was so, her very confidence was a proof. What other reason for the disclosure of the affair could there be, but that Elinor might be informed by it of Lucy s superior claims on Edward, and be taught to avoid him in future? She had little difficulty in understanding thus much of her rival s intentions, and while she was firmly resolved to act by her as every principle of honour and honesty directed, to combat her own affection for Edward and to see him as little as possible; she could not deny herself the comfort of endeavouring to convince Lucy that her heart was unwounded. And as she could now have nothing more painful to hear on the subject than had already been told, she did not mistrust her own ability of going through a repetition of particulars with composure. But it was not immediately that an opportunity of doing so could be commanded, though Lucy was as well disposed as herself to take advantage of any that occurred; for the weather was not often fine enough to allow of their joining in a walk, where they might most easily separate themselves from the others; and though they met at least every other evening either at the park or cottage, and chiefly at the former, they could not be supposed to meet for the sake of conversation. Such a thought would never enter either Sir John or Lady Middleton s head; and therefore very little leisure was ever given for a general chat, and none at all for particular discourse. They met for the sake of eating, drinking, and laughing together, playing at cards, or consequences, or any other game that was sufficiently noisy. One or two meetings of this kind had taken place, without affording Elinor any chance of engaging Lucy in private, when Sir John called at the cottage one morning, to beg, in the name of charity, that they would all dine with Lady Middleton that day, as he was obliged to attend the club at Exeter, and she would otherwise be quite alone, except her mother and the two Miss Steeles. Elinor, who foresaw a fairer opening for the point she had in view, in such a party as this was likely to be, more at liberty among themselves under the tranquil and well-bred direction of Lady Middleton than when her husband united them together in one noisy purpose, immediately accepted the invitation; Margaret, with her mother s permission, was equally compliant, and Marianne, though always unwilling to join any of their parties, was persuaded by her mother, who could not bear to have her seclude herself from any chance of amusement, to go likewise. The young ladies went, and Lady Middleton was happily preserved from the frightful solitude which had threatened her. The insipidity of the meeting was exactly such as Elinor had expected; it produced not one novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of engaging Lucy s attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria s basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the dear little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I hope she will not much mind it." This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied, "Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have been at my filigree already. I would not disappoint the little angel for all the world: and if you want me at the card-table now, I am resolved to finish the basket after supper." "You are very good, I hope it won t hurt your eyes will you ring the bell for some working candles? My poor little girl would be sadly disappointed, I know, if the basket was not finished tomorrow, for though I told her it certainly would not, I am sure she depends upon having it done." Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste no greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child. Lady Middleton proposed a rubber of Casino to the others. No one made any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to the forms of general civility, exclaimed, "Your Ladyship will have the goodness to excuse _me_ you know I detest cards. I shall go to the piano-forte; I have not touched it since it was tuned." And without farther ceremony, she turned away and walked to the instrument. Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that _she_ had never made so rude a speech. "Marianne can never keep long from that instrument you know, ma am," said Elinor, endeavouring to smooth away the offence; "and I do not much wonder at it; for it is the very best toned piano-forte I ever heard." The remaining five were now to draw their cards. "Perhaps," continued Elinor, "if I should happen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be impossible I think for her labour singly, to finish it this evening. I should like the work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it." "Indeed I shall be very much obliged to you for your help," cried Lucy, "for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was; and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear Annamaria after all." "Oh! that would be terrible, indeed," said Miss Steele. "Dear little soul, how I do love her!" "You are very kind," said Lady Middleton to Elinor; "and as you really like the work, perhaps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till another rubber, or will you take your chance now?" Elinor joyfully profited by the first of these proposals, and thus by a little of that address which Marianne could never condescend to practise, gained her own end, and pleased Lady Middleton at the same time. Lucy made room for her with ready attention, and the two fair rivals were thus seated side by side at the same table, and, with the utmost harmony, engaged in forwarding the same work. The pianoforte at which Marianne, wrapped up in her own music and her own thoughts, had by this time forgotten that any body was in the room besides herself, was luckily so near them that Miss Dashwood now judged she might safely, under the shelter of its noise, introduce the interesting subject, without any risk of being heard at the card-table. CHAPTER XXIV. In a firm, though cautious tone, Elinor thus began. "I should be undeserving of the confidence you have honoured me with, if I felt no desire for its continuance, or no farther curiosity on its subject. I will not apologize therefore for bringing it forward again." "Thank you," cried Lucy warmly, "for breaking the ice; you have set my heart at ease by it; for I was somehow or other afraid I had offended you by what I told you that Monday." "Offended me! How could you suppose so? Believe me," and Elinor spoke it with the truest sincerity, "nothing could be farther from my intention than to give you such an idea. Could you have a motive for the trust, that was not honourable and flattering to me?" "And yet I do assure you," replied Lucy, her little sharp eyes full of meaning, "there seemed to me to be a coldness | park or cottage, and chiefly at the former, they could not be supposed to meet for the sake of conversation. Such a thought would never enter either Sir John or Lady Middleton s head; and therefore very little leisure was ever given for a general chat, and none at all for particular discourse. They met for the sake of eating, drinking, and laughing together, playing at cards, or consequences, or any other game that was sufficiently noisy. One or two meetings of this kind had taken place, without affording Elinor any chance of engaging Lucy in private, when Sir John called at the cottage one morning, to beg, in the name of charity, that they would all dine with Lady Middleton that day, as he was obliged to attend the club at Exeter, and she would otherwise be quite alone, except her mother and the two Miss Steeles. Elinor, who foresaw a fairer opening for the point she had in view, in such a party as this was likely to be, more at liberty among themselves under the tranquil and well-bred direction of Lady Middleton than when her husband united them together in one noisy purpose, immediately accepted the invitation; Margaret, with her mother s permission, was equally compliant, and Marianne, though always unwilling to join any of their parties, was persuaded by her mother, who could not bear to have her seclude herself from any chance of amusement, to go likewise. The young ladies went, and Lady Middleton was happily preserved from the frightful solitude which had threatened her. The insipidity of the meeting was exactly such as Elinor had expected; it produced not one novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of engaging Lucy s attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a round game. "I am glad,"<|quote|>said Lady Middleton to Lucy,</|quote|>"you are not going to finish poor little Annamaria s basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the dear little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I hope she will not much mind it." This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied, "Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have been at my filigree already. I would not disappoint the little angel for all the world: and if you want me at the card-table now, I am resolved to finish the basket after supper." "You are very good, I hope it won t hurt your eyes will you ring the bell for some working candles? My poor little girl would be sadly disappointed, I know, if the basket was not finished tomorrow, for though I told her it certainly would not, I am sure she depends upon having it done." Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste no greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child. Lady Middleton proposed a rubber of Casino to the others. No one made any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to the forms of general civility, exclaimed, "Your Ladyship will have the goodness to excuse _me_ you know I detest cards. I shall go to the piano-forte; I have not touched it since it was tuned." And without farther ceremony, she turned away and walked to the instrument. Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that _she_ had never made so rude a speech. "Marianne can never keep long from that instrument you know, ma am," said Elinor, endeavouring to smooth away the offence; "and I do not much wonder at it; for it is the very best toned piano-forte I ever heard." The remaining five were now to draw their cards. "Perhaps," continued Elinor, "if I should happen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be impossible I think for her labour singly, to finish it this evening. I should like the work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it." "Indeed I shall be very much obliged to you for your help," cried Lucy, "for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was; and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear Annamaria after all." "Oh! that would be terrible, indeed," said Miss Steele. "Dear little soul, how I do love her!" "You are very kind," said Lady Middleton to Elinor; "and as you really like the work, perhaps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till another rubber, or will you take your chance now?" Elinor joyfully profited by the first of these proposals, and thus by a little of that address which Marianne could never condescend to practise, gained her own end, and pleased Lady Middleton at the same time. Lucy made room | Sense And Sensibility |
began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm. | No speaker | calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," | give one. "That s so, calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I | the mistake arose--it was a mistake." "The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one. "That s so, calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs. Bast," I have to pay a call on some friends, "and Mrs. Bast said to me," Do go. "While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and thought I had come here, owing to | "And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of course." "Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?" "Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel." "The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret. "Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake." "The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one. "That s so, calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs. Bast," I have to pay a call on some friends, "and Mrs. Bast said to me," Do go. "While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently caused you." "No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don t understand." An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was obviously | do." "Well, that was how it happened, you see." "Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don t remember." "It was a concert at the Queen s Hall. I think you will recollect," he added pretentiously, "when I tell you that it included a performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven." "We hear the Fifth practically every time it s done, so I m not sure--do you remember, Helen?" "Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?" He thought not. "Then I don t remember. That s the only Beethoven I ever remember specially." "And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of course." "Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?" "Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel." "The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret. "Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake." "The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one. "That s so, calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs. Bast," I have to pay a call on some friends, "and Mrs. Bast said to me," Do go. "While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently caused you." "No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don t understand." An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was obviously lying, and Helen didn t see why he should get off. She had the cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister s pressure, she said, "I still don t understand. When did you say you paid this call?" "Call? What call?" said he, staring as if her question had been a foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream. "This afternoon call." "In the afternoon, of course!" he replied, and looked at Tibby to see how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, "Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon?" "S--Saturday." "Really!" said Helen; "and you were still calling on | the third generation, grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit. Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very well--the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew the very tones in which he would address her. She was only unprepared for an example of her own visiting-card. "You wouldn t remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?" said he, uneasily familiar. "No; I can t say I do." "Well, that was how it happened, you see." "Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don t remember." "It was a concert at the Queen s Hall. I think you will recollect," he added pretentiously, "when I tell you that it included a performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven." "We hear the Fifth practically every time it s done, so I m not sure--do you remember, Helen?" "Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?" He thought not. "Then I don t remember. That s the only Beethoven I ever remember specially." "And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of course." "Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?" "Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel." "The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret. "Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake." "The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one. "That s so, calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs. Bast," I have to pay a call on some friends, "and Mrs. Bast said to me," Do go. "While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently caused you." "No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don t understand." An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was obviously lying, and Helen didn t see why he should get off. She had the cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister s pressure, she said, "I still don t understand. When did you say you paid this call?" "Call? What call?" said he, staring as if her question had been a foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream. "This afternoon call." "In the afternoon, of course!" he replied, and looked at Tibby to see how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, "Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon?" "S--Saturday." "Really!" said Helen; "and you were still calling on Sunday, when your wife came here. A long visit." "I don t call that fair," said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and handsome. There was fight in his eyes. "I know what you mean, and it isn t so." "Oh, don t let us mind," said Margaret, distressed again by odours from the abyss. "It was something else," he asserted, his elaborate manner breaking down. "I was somewhere else to what you think, so there!" "It was good of you to come and explain," she said. "The rest is naturally no concern of ours." "Yes, but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of Richard Feverel?" Margaret nodded. "It s a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don t you see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson s Prince Otto?" Helen and Tibby groaned gently. "That s another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in that. I wanted--" He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists of his culture came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. "I walked all the Saturday night," said Leonard. "I walked." A thrill of approval ran through the sisters. But culture closed in | the police. She thanked me. We agreed that Mr. Lanoline s a notty, notty man, and hasn t no business to go on the lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up to the last. Bags I writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg, remember--bags I." "Bag it by all means," murmured Margaret, putting down her work. "I m not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible volcano smoking somewhere, doesn t it?" "I don t think so--she doesn t really mind. The admirable creature isn t capable of tragedy." "Her husband may be, though," said Margaret, moving to the window. "Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married Mrs. Lanoline." "Was she pretty?" "Her figure may have been good once." The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain between Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned sadly to house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She feared, fantastically, that her own little flock might be moving into turmoil and squalor, into nearer contact with such episodes as these. "Tibby and I have again been wondering where we ll live next September," she said at last. "Tibby had better first wonder what he ll do," retorted Helen; and that topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and after tea Helen went on preparing her speech, and Margaret prepared one, too, for they were going out to a discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts were poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had both decayed. CHAPTER XIV The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day, just as they were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called. He was a clerk in the employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company. Thus much from his card. He had come "about the lady yesterday." Thus much from Annie, who had shown him into the dining-room. "Cheers, children!" cried Helen. "It s Mrs. Lanoline." Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not the gay dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless, who had already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so common in London, and that haunt some streets of the city like accusing presences. One guessed him as the third generation, grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit. Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very well--the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew the very tones in which he would address her. She was only unprepared for an example of her own visiting-card. "You wouldn t remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?" said he, uneasily familiar. "No; I can t say I do." "Well, that was how it happened, you see." "Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don t remember." "It was a concert at the Queen s Hall. I think you will recollect," he added pretentiously, "when I tell you that it included a performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven." "We hear the Fifth practically every time it s done, so I m not sure--do you remember, Helen?" "Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?" He thought not. "Then I don t remember. That s the only Beethoven I ever remember specially." "And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of course." "Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?" "Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel." "The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret. "Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake." "The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one. "That s so, calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs. Bast," I have to pay a call on some friends, "and Mrs. Bast said to me," Do go. "While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently caused you." "No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don t understand." An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was obviously lying, and Helen didn t see why he should get off. She had the cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister s pressure, she said, "I still don t understand. When did you say you paid this call?" "Call? What call?" said he, staring as if her question had been a foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream. "This afternoon call." "In the afternoon, of course!" he replied, and looked at Tibby to see how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, "Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon?" "S--Saturday." "Really!" said Helen; "and you were still calling on Sunday, when your wife came here. A long visit." "I don t call that fair," said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and handsome. There was fight in his eyes. "I know what you mean, and it isn t so." "Oh, don t let us mind," said Margaret, distressed again by odours from the abyss. "It was something else," he asserted, his elaborate manner breaking down. "I was somewhere else to what you think, so there!" "It was good of you to come and explain," she said. "The rest is naturally no concern of ours." "Yes, but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of Richard Feverel?" Margaret nodded. "It s a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don t you see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson s Prince Otto?" Helen and Tibby groaned gently. "That s another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in that. I wanted--" He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists of his culture came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. "I walked all the Saturday night," said Leonard. "I walked." A thrill of approval ran through the sisters. But culture closed in again. He asked whether they had ever read E. V. Lucas s Open Road. Said Helen, "No doubt it s another beautiful book, but I d rather hear about your road." "Oh, I walked." "How far?" "I don t know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my watch." "Were you walking alone, may I ask?" "Yes," he said, straightening himself; "but we d been talking it over at the office. There s been a lot of talk at the office lately about these things. The fellows there said one steers by the Pole Star, and I looked it up in the celestial atlas, but once out of doors everything gets so mixed." "Don t talk to me about the Pole Star," interrupted Helen, who was becoming interested. "I know its little ways. It goes round and round, and you go round after it." "Well, I lost it entirely. First of all the street lamps, then the trees, and towards morning it got cloudy." Tibby, who preferred his comedy undiluted, slipped from the room. He knew that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did not want to hear him trying. Margaret and Helen remained. Their brother influenced them more than they knew; in his absence they were stirred to enthusiasm more easily. "Where did you start from?" cried Margaret. "Do tell us more." "I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the office I said to myself, I must have a walk once in a way. If I don t take this walk now, I shall never take it. I had a bit of dinner at Wimbledon, and then--" "But not good country there, is it?" "It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and being out was the great thing. I did get into woods, too, presently." "Yes, go on," said Helen. "You ve no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it s dark." "Did you actually go off the roads?" "Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it is that it s more difficult to find one s way." "Mr. Bast, you re a born adventurer," laughed Margaret. "No professional athlete would have attempted what you ve done. It s a wonder your walk didn t end in a broken neck. Whatever did your wife say?" "Professional athletes never | risen out of the abyss, like a faint smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had both decayed. CHAPTER XIV The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day, just as they were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called. He was a clerk in the employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company. Thus much from his card. He had come "about the lady yesterday." Thus much from Annie, who had shown him into the dining-room. "Cheers, children!" cried Helen. "It s Mrs. Lanoline." Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not the gay dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless, who had already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so common in London, and that haunt some streets of the city like accusing presences. One guessed him as the third generation, grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit. Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very well--the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew the very tones in which he would address her. She was only unprepared for an example of her own visiting-card. "You wouldn t remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?" said he, uneasily familiar. "No; I can t say I do." "Well, that was how it happened, you see." "Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don t remember." "It was a concert at the Queen s Hall. I think you will recollect," he added pretentiously, "when I tell you that it included a performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven." "We hear the Fifth practically every time it s done, so I m not sure--do you remember, Helen?" "Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?" He thought not. "Then I don t remember. That s the only Beethoven I ever remember specially." "And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of course." "Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?" "Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel." "The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret. "Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake." "The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one. "That s so, calling too--a mistake." "Then why--?"<|quote|>began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.</|quote|>"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs. Bast," I have to pay a call on some friends, "and Mrs. Bast said to me," Do go. "While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently caused you." "No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don t understand." An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was obviously lying, and Helen didn t see why he should get off. She had the cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister s pressure, she said, "I still don t understand. When did you say you paid this call?" "Call? What call?" said he, staring as if her question had been a foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream. "This afternoon call." "In the afternoon, of course!" he replied, and looked at Tibby to see how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, "Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon?" "S--Saturday." "Really!" said Helen; "and you were still calling on Sunday, when your wife came here. A long visit." "I don t call that fair," said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and handsome. There was fight in his eyes. "I know what you mean, and it isn t so." "Oh, don t let us mind," said Margaret, distressed again by odours from the abyss. "It was something else," he asserted, his elaborate manner breaking down. "I was somewhere else to what you think, so there!" "It was good of you to come and explain," she said. "The rest is naturally no concern of ours." "Yes, but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of Richard Feverel?" Margaret nodded. "It s a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don t you see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson s Prince Otto?" Helen and Tibby groaned gently. "That s another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in that. I wanted--" He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists | Howards End |
"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon." | Basil Hallward | the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to | Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. | and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape." "Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward? "she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?" "Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. "I could not get rid of her. She | Then but I don t know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape." "Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward? "she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?" "Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. "I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of | for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then but I don t know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape." "Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward? "she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?" "Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. "I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so | replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, "and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible." The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward s heart beating, and wondered what was coming. "The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon s. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then but I don t know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape." "Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward? "she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?" "Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. "I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other." "And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his companion. "I know she goes in for giving a rapid _pr cis_ of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants to know." "Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward listlessly. "My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?" "Oh, something like," Charming boy poor dear mother and I absolutely inseparable. Quite forget what he does afraid he doesn t do anything oh, yes, plays the piano or is | Harry," said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. "I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose." "Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know," cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous. After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. "I am afraid I must be going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago." "What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. "You know quite well." "I do not, Harry." "Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you won t exhibit Dorian Gray s picture. I want the real reason." "I told you the real reason." "No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of yourself in it. Now, that is childish." "Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul." Lord Henry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked. "I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came over his face. "I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him. "Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter; "and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it." Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, "and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible." The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward s heart beating, and wondered what was coming. "The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon s. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then but I don t know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape." "Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward? "she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?" "Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. "I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other." "And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his companion. "I know she goes in for giving a rapid _pr cis_ of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants to know." "Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward listlessly. "My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?" "Oh, something like," Charming boy poor dear mother and I absolutely inseparable. Quite forget what he does afraid he doesn t do anything oh, yes, plays the piano or is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray? "Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at once." "Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy. Hallward shook his head. "You don t understand what friendship is, Harry," he murmured "or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one." "How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky. "Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain." "I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must be merely an acquaintance." "My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance." "And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?" "Oh, brothers! I don t care for brothers. My elder brother won t die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else." "Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning. "My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can t help detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite magnificent. And yet I don t suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat live correctly." "I don t agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is more, Harry, I | an expression of perplexity came over his face. "I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him. "Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter; "and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it." Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, "and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible." The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward s heart beating, and wondered what was coming. "The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon s. You know we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then but I don t know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to escape." "Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."<|quote|>"I don t believe that, Harry, and I don t believe you do either. However, whatever was my motive and it may have been pride, for I used to be very proud I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon."</|quote|>You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward? "she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?" "Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. "I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destined to know each other." "And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his companion. "I | The Picture Of Dorian Gray |
"He's still only a child, you know." | Mrs. Braddocks | cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. | Braddocks followed me. "Don't be cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. "I just thought perhaps I | positive sense but just enough to be careless. "For God's sake," I said, "yes. Don't you?" "Oh, how charmingly you get angry," he said. "I wish I had that faculty." I got up and walked over toward the dancing-floor. Mrs. Braddocks followed me. "Don't be cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. "I just thought perhaps I was going to throw up." "Your fianc e is having a great success," Mrs. Braddocks looked out on the floor where Georgette was dancing in the arms of the tall, dark one, called Lett. "Isn't she?" I said. "Rather," said | "I've just had one." "Have another." "Thanks, I will then." We got the daughter of the house over and each had a _fine l'eau_. "You're from Kansas City, they tell me," he said. "Yes." "Do you find Paris amusing?" "Yes." "Really?" I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless. "For God's sake," I said, "yes. Don't you?" "Oh, how charmingly you get angry," he said. "I wish I had that faculty." I got up and walked over toward the dancing-floor. Mrs. Braddocks followed me. "Don't be cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. "I just thought perhaps I was going to throw up." "Your fianc e is having a great success," Mrs. Braddocks looked out on the floor where Georgette was dancing in the arms of the tall, dark one, called Lett. "Isn't she?" I said. "Rather," said Mrs. Braddocks. Cohn came up. "Come on, Jake," he said, "have a drink." We walked over to the bar. "What's the matter with you? You seem all worked up over something?" "Nothing. This whole show makes me sick is all." Brett came up to the bar. "Hello, you chaps." "Hello, | his eyes lifted as he danced. As soon as the music stopped another one of them asked her to dance. She had been taken up by them. I knew then that they would all dance with her. They are like that. I sat down at a table. Cohn was sitting there. Frances was dancing. Mrs. Braddocks brought up somebody and introduced him as Robert Prentiss. He was from New York by way of Chicago, and was a rising new novelist. He had some sort of an English accent. I asked him to have a drink. "Thanks so much," he said, "I've just had one." "Have another." "Thanks, I will then." We got the daughter of the house over and each had a _fine l'eau_. "You're from Kansas City, they tell me," he said. "Yes." "Do you find Paris amusing?" "Yes." "Really?" I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless. "For God's sake," I said, "yes. Don't you?" "Oh, how charmingly you get angry," he said. "I wish I had that faculty." I got up and walked over toward the dancing-floor. Mrs. Braddocks followed me. "Don't be cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. "I just thought perhaps I was going to throw up." "Your fianc e is having a great success," Mrs. Braddocks looked out on the floor where Georgette was dancing in the arms of the tall, dark one, called Lett. "Isn't she?" I said. "Rather," said Mrs. Braddocks. Cohn came up. "Come on, Jake," he said, "have a drink." We walked over to the bar. "What's the matter with you? You seem all worked up over something?" "Nothing. This whole show makes me sick is all." Brett came up to the bar. "Hello, you chaps." "Hello, Brett," I said. "Why aren't you tight?" "Never going to get tight any more. I say, give a chap a brandy and soda." She stood holding the glass and I saw Robert Cohn looking at her. He looked a great deal as his compatriot must have looked when he saw the promised land. Cohn, of course, was much younger. But he had that look of eager, deserving expectation. Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves | the door looked at me and smiled. They came in. As they went in, under the light I saw white hands, wavy hair, white faces, grimacing, gesturing, talking. With them was Brett. She looked very lovely and she was very much with them. One of them saw Georgette and said: "I do declare. There is an actual harlot. I'm going to dance with her, Lett. You watch me." The tall dark one, called Lett, said: "Don't you be rash." The wavy blond one answered: "Don't you worry, dear." And with them was Brett. I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure. Instead, I walked down the street and had a beer at the bar at the next Bal. The beer was not good and I had a worse cognac to take the taste out of my mouth. When I came back to the Bal there was a crowd on the floor and Georgette was dancing with the tall blond youth, who danced big-hippily, carrying his head on one side, his eyes lifted as he danced. As soon as the music stopped another one of them asked her to dance. She had been taken up by them. I knew then that they would all dance with her. They are like that. I sat down at a table. Cohn was sitting there. Frances was dancing. Mrs. Braddocks brought up somebody and introduced him as Robert Prentiss. He was from New York by way of Chicago, and was a rising new novelist. He had some sort of an English accent. I asked him to have a drink. "Thanks so much," he said, "I've just had one." "Have another." "Thanks, I will then." We got the daughter of the house over and each had a _fine l'eau_. "You're from Kansas City, they tell me," he said. "Yes." "Do you find Paris amusing?" "Yes." "Really?" I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless. "For God's sake," I said, "yes. Don't you?" "Oh, how charmingly you get angry," he said. "I wish I had that faculty." I got up and walked over toward the dancing-floor. Mrs. Braddocks followed me. "Don't be cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. "I just thought perhaps I was going to throw up." "Your fianc e is having a great success," Mrs. Braddocks looked out on the floor where Georgette was dancing in the arms of the tall, dark one, called Lett. "Isn't she?" I said. "Rather," said Mrs. Braddocks. Cohn came up. "Come on, Jake," he said, "have a drink." We walked over to the bar. "What's the matter with you? You seem all worked up over something?" "Nothing. This whole show makes me sick is all." Brett came up to the bar. "Hello, you chaps." "Hello, Brett," I said. "Why aren't you tight?" "Never going to get tight any more. I say, give a chap a brandy and soda." She stood holding the glass and I saw Robert Cohn looking at her. He looked a great deal as his compatriot must have looked when he saw the promised land. Cohn, of course, was much younger. But he had that look of eager, deserving expectation. Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey. "It's a fine crowd you're with, Brett," I said. "Aren't they lovely? And you, my dear. Where did you get it?" "At the Napolitain." "And have you had a lovely evening?" "Oh, priceless," I said. Brett laughed. "It's wrong of you, Jake. It's an insult to all of us. Look at Frances there, and Jo." This for Cohn's benefit. "It's in restraint of trade," Brett said. She laughed again. "You're wonderfully sober," I said. "Yes. Aren't I? And when one's with the crowd I'm with, one can drink in such safety, too." The music started and Robert Cohn said: "Will you dance this with me, Lady Brett?" Brett smiled at him. "I've promised to dance this with Jacob," she laughed. "You've a hell of a biblical name, Jake." "How about the next?" asked Cohn. "We're going," Brett said. "We've a date up at Montmartre." Dancing, I looked over Brett's shoulder and saw Cohn, standing at the bar, still watching her. "You've made a new one there," I said to her. "Don't talk about it. Poor chap. I never knew it till just now." | on her long neck, her lips pursed ready to start talking again. "No, I don't like Paris. It's expensive and dirty." "Really? I find it so extraordinarily clean. One of the cleanest cities in all Europe." "I find it dirty." "How strange! But perhaps you have not been here very long." "I've been here long enough." "But it does have nice people in it. One must grant that." Georgette turned to me. "You have nice friends." Frances was a little drunk and would have liked to have kept it up but the coffee came, and Lavigne with the liqueurs, and after that we all went out and started for Braddocks's dancing-club. The dancing-club was a _bal musette_ in the Rue de la Montagne Sainte Genevi ve. Five nights a week the working people of the Pantheon quarter danced there. One night a week it was the dancing-club. On Monday nights it was closed. When we arrived it was quite empty, except for a policeman sitting near the door, the wife of the proprietor back of the zinc bar, and the proprietor himself. The daughter of the house came downstairs as we went in. There were long benches, and tables ran across the room, and at the far end a dancing-floor. "I wish people would come earlier," Braddocks said. The daughter came up and wanted to know what we would drink. The proprietor got up on a high stool beside the dancing-floor and began to play the accordion. He had a string of bells around one of his ankles and beat time with his foot as he played. Every one danced. It was hot and we came off the floor perspiring. "My God," Georgette said. "What a box to sweat in!" "It's hot." "Hot, my God!" "Take off your hat." "That's a good idea." Some one asked Georgette to dance, and I went over to the bar. It was really very hot and the accordion music was pleasant in the hot night. I drank a beer, standing in the doorway and getting the cool breath of wind from the street. Two taxis were coming down the steep street. They both stopped in front of the Bal. A crowd of young men, some in jerseys and some in their shirt-sleeves, got out. I could see their hands and newly washed, wavy hair in the light from the door. The policeman standing by the door looked at me and smiled. They came in. As they went in, under the light I saw white hands, wavy hair, white faces, grimacing, gesturing, talking. With them was Brett. She looked very lovely and she was very much with them. One of them saw Georgette and said: "I do declare. There is an actual harlot. I'm going to dance with her, Lett. You watch me." The tall dark one, called Lett, said: "Don't you be rash." The wavy blond one answered: "Don't you worry, dear." And with them was Brett. I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure. Instead, I walked down the street and had a beer at the bar at the next Bal. The beer was not good and I had a worse cognac to take the taste out of my mouth. When I came back to the Bal there was a crowd on the floor and Georgette was dancing with the tall blond youth, who danced big-hippily, carrying his head on one side, his eyes lifted as he danced. As soon as the music stopped another one of them asked her to dance. She had been taken up by them. I knew then that they would all dance with her. They are like that. I sat down at a table. Cohn was sitting there. Frances was dancing. Mrs. Braddocks brought up somebody and introduced him as Robert Prentiss. He was from New York by way of Chicago, and was a rising new novelist. He had some sort of an English accent. I asked him to have a drink. "Thanks so much," he said, "I've just had one." "Have another." "Thanks, I will then." We got the daughter of the house over and each had a _fine l'eau_. "You're from Kansas City, they tell me," he said. "Yes." "Do you find Paris amusing?" "Yes." "Really?" I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless. "For God's sake," I said, "yes. Don't you?" "Oh, how charmingly you get angry," he said. "I wish I had that faculty." I got up and walked over toward the dancing-floor. Mrs. Braddocks followed me. "Don't be cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. "I just thought perhaps I was going to throw up." "Your fianc e is having a great success," Mrs. Braddocks looked out on the floor where Georgette was dancing in the arms of the tall, dark one, called Lett. "Isn't she?" I said. "Rather," said Mrs. Braddocks. Cohn came up. "Come on, Jake," he said, "have a drink." We walked over to the bar. "What's the matter with you? You seem all worked up over something?" "Nothing. This whole show makes me sick is all." Brett came up to the bar. "Hello, you chaps." "Hello, Brett," I said. "Why aren't you tight?" "Never going to get tight any more. I say, give a chap a brandy and soda." She stood holding the glass and I saw Robert Cohn looking at her. He looked a great deal as his compatriot must have looked when he saw the promised land. Cohn, of course, was much younger. But he had that look of eager, deserving expectation. Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey. "It's a fine crowd you're with, Brett," I said. "Aren't they lovely? And you, my dear. Where did you get it?" "At the Napolitain." "And have you had a lovely evening?" "Oh, priceless," I said. Brett laughed. "It's wrong of you, Jake. It's an insult to all of us. Look at Frances there, and Jo." This for Cohn's benefit. "It's in restraint of trade," Brett said. She laughed again. "You're wonderfully sober," I said. "Yes. Aren't I? And when one's with the crowd I'm with, one can drink in such safety, too." The music started and Robert Cohn said: "Will you dance this with me, Lady Brett?" Brett smiled at him. "I've promised to dance this with Jacob," she laughed. "You've a hell of a biblical name, Jake." "How about the next?" asked Cohn. "We're going," Brett said. "We've a date up at Montmartre." Dancing, I looked over Brett's shoulder and saw Cohn, standing at the bar, still watching her. "You've made a new one there," I said to her. "Don't talk about it. Poor chap. I never knew it till just now." "Oh, well," I said. "I suppose you like to add them up." "Don't talk like a fool." "You do." "Oh, well. What if I do?" "Nothing," I said. We were dancing to the accordion and some one was playing the banjo. It was hot and I felt happy. We passed close to Georgette dancing with another one of them. "What possessed you to bring her?" "I don't know, I just brought her." "You're getting damned romantic." "No, bored." "Now?" "No, not now." "Let's get out of here. She's well taken care of." "Do you want to?" "Would I ask you if I didn't want to?" We left the floor and I took my coat off a hanger on the wall and put it on. Brett stood by the bar. Cohn was talking to her. I stopped at the bar and asked them for an envelope. The patronne found one. I took a fifty-franc note from my pocket, put it in the envelope, sealed it, and handed it to the patronne. "If the girl I came with asks for me, will you give her this?" I said. "If she goes out with one of those gentlemen, will you save this for me?" "C'est entendu, Monsieur," the patronne said. "You go now? So early?" "Yes," I said. We started out the door. Cohn was still talking to Brett. She said good night and took my arm. "Good night, Cohn," I said. Outside in the street we looked for a taxi. "You're going to lose your fifty francs," Brett said. "Oh, yes." "No taxis." "We could walk up to the Pantheon and get one." "Come on and we'll get a drink in the pub next door and send for one." "You wouldn't walk across the street." "Not if I could help it." We went into the next bar and I sent a waiter for a taxi. "Well," I said, "we're out away from them." We stood against the tall zinc bar and did not talk and looked at each other. The waiter came and said the taxi was outside. Brett pressed my hand hard. I gave the waiter a franc and we went out. "Where should I tell him?" I asked. "Oh, tell him to drive around." I told the driver to go to the Parc Montsouris, and got in, and slammed the door. Brett was leaning back in the corner, her eyes | The wavy blond one answered: "Don't you worry, dear." And with them was Brett. I was very angry. Somehow they always made me angry. I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure. Instead, I walked down the street and had a beer at the bar at the next Bal. The beer was not good and I had a worse cognac to take the taste out of my mouth. When I came back to the Bal there was a crowd on the floor and Georgette was dancing with the tall blond youth, who danced big-hippily, carrying his head on one side, his eyes lifted as he danced. As soon as the music stopped another one of them asked her to dance. She had been taken up by them. I knew then that they would all dance with her. They are like that. I sat down at a table. Cohn was sitting there. Frances was dancing. Mrs. Braddocks brought up somebody and introduced him as Robert Prentiss. He was from New York by way of Chicago, and was a rising new novelist. He had some sort of an English accent. I asked him to have a drink. "Thanks so much," he said, "I've just had one." "Have another." "Thanks, I will then." We got the daughter of the house over and each had a _fine l'eau_. "You're from Kansas City, they tell me," he said. "Yes." "Do you find Paris amusing?" "Yes." "Really?" I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless. "For God's sake," I said, "yes. Don't you?" "Oh, how charmingly you get angry," he said. "I wish I had that faculty." I got up and walked over toward the dancing-floor. Mrs. Braddocks followed me. "Don't be cross with Robert," she said.<|quote|>"He's still only a child, you know."</|quote|>"I wasn't cross," I said. "I just thought perhaps I was going to throw up." "Your fianc e is having a great success," Mrs. Braddocks looked out on the floor where Georgette was dancing in the arms of the tall, dark one, called Lett. "Isn't she?" I said. "Rather," said Mrs. Braddocks. Cohn came up. "Come on, Jake," he said, "have a drink." We walked over to the bar. "What's the matter with you? You seem all worked up over something?" "Nothing. This whole show makes me sick is all." Brett came up to the bar. "Hello, you chaps." "Hello, Brett," I said. "Why aren't you tight?" "Never going to get tight any more. I say, give a chap a brandy and soda." She stood holding the glass and I saw Robert Cohn looking at her. He looked a great deal as his compatriot must have looked when he saw the promised land. Cohn, of course, was much younger. But he had that look of eager, deserving expectation. Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey. "It's a fine crowd you're with, Brett," I said. "Aren't they lovely? And you, my dear. Where did you get it?" "At the Napolitain." "And have you had a lovely evening?" "Oh, priceless," I said. Brett laughed. "It's wrong of you, Jake. It's an insult to all of us. Look at Frances there, and Jo." This for Cohn's benefit. "It's in restraint of trade," Brett said. She laughed again. "You're wonderfully sober," I said. "Yes. Aren't I? And when one's with the crowd I'm with, one can drink in such safety, too." The music started and Robert Cohn said: "Will you dance this with me, Lady Brett?" Brett smiled at him. "I've promised to dance this with Jacob," she laughed. "You've a hell of a biblical name, Jake." "How about the next?" asked Cohn. "We're going," Brett said. "We've a date up at Montmartre." Dancing, I looked over Brett's shoulder and saw Cohn, standing at the bar, still watching her. "You've made a new one there," I said to her. "Don't talk about it. Poor chap. I never knew it till just now." "Oh, well," I said. "I suppose you like to add them up." "Don't talk like a fool." "You do." "Oh, well. What if I do?" "Nothing," I said. We were dancing to the accordion and some one was playing the banjo. It was hot and I felt happy. We passed close to Georgette dancing with another one of them. "What possessed you to bring her?" "I don't know, I just brought her." "You're getting damned romantic." "No, bored." "Now?" "No, not now." "Let's get out of here. She's well taken care of." "Do you want to?" "Would I ask you if I didn't want to?" We left the floor and I took my coat off a hanger on the wall and put it on. Brett stood by the bar. Cohn was talking to her. I stopped at the bar and asked them for an envelope. The patronne found one. I took | The Sun Also Rises |
asked the cook. | No speaker | "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting | heerd the noise again, distinct." "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting noise," replied Mr. Giles, looking | the housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear. "Heerd a noise," continued Mr. Giles. "I says, at first," This is illusion'; "and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the noise again, distinct." "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting noise," replied Mr. Giles, looking round him. "More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater," suggested Brittles. "It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir," rejoined Mr. Giles; "but, at this time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes" | up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here Mr. Giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes,) I fancied I heerd a noise." At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear. "Heerd a noise," continued Mr. Giles. "I says, at first," This is illusion'; "and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the noise again, distinct." "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting noise," replied Mr. Giles, looking round him. "More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater," suggested Brittles. "It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir," rejoined Mr. Giles; "but, at this time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes" "; continued Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, "sat up in bed; and listened." The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated "Lor!" and drew their chairs closer together. "I heerd it now, quite apparent," resumed Mr. Giles. " Somebody,' "I says" , is forcing of a door, or window; what's to be | it gratified, could not fail to remind them of his superior position in society. But, death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched out before the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while, with his right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the robbery, to which his bearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathless interest. "It was about half-past two," said Mr. Giles, "or I wouldn't swear that it mightn't have been a little nearer three, when I woke up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here Mr. Giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes,) I fancied I heerd a noise." At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear. "Heerd a noise," continued Mr. Giles. "I says, at first," This is illusion'; "and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the noise again, distinct." "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting noise," replied Mr. Giles, looking round him. "More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater," suggested Brittles. "It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir," rejoined Mr. Giles; "but, at this time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes" "; continued Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, "sat up in bed; and listened." The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated "Lor!" and drew their chairs closer together. "I heerd it now, quite apparent," resumed Mr. Giles. " Somebody,' "I says" , is forcing of a door, or window; what's to be done? I'll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; or his throat,' "I says" , may be cut from his right ear to his left, without his ever knowing it.'" Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror. "I tossed off the clothes," said Giles, throwing away the table-cloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, "got softly out of bed; drew on a pair of" "Ladies | aspect of the building seemed familiar to him. That garden wall! On the grass inside, he had fallen on his knees last night, and prayed the two men's mercy. It was the very house they had attempted to rob. Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised the place, that, for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, and thought only of flight. Flight! He could scarcely stand: and if he were in full possession of all the best powers of his slight and youthful frame, whither could he fly? He pushed against the garden-gate; it was unlocked, and swung open on its hinges. He tottered across the lawn; climbed the steps; knocked faintly at the door; and, his whole strength failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico. It happened that about this time, Mr. Giles, Brittles, and the tinker, were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors of the night, with tea and sundries, in the kitchen. Not that it was Mr. Giles's habit to admit to too great familiarity the humbler servants: towards whom it was rather his wont to deport himself with a lofty affability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them of his superior position in society. But, death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched out before the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while, with his right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the robbery, to which his bearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathless interest. "It was about half-past two," said Mr. Giles, "or I wouldn't swear that it mightn't have been a little nearer three, when I woke up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here Mr. Giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes,) I fancied I heerd a noise." At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear. "Heerd a noise," continued Mr. Giles. "I says, at first," This is illusion'; "and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the noise again, distinct." "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting noise," replied Mr. Giles, looking round him. "More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater," suggested Brittles. "It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir," rejoined Mr. Giles; "but, at this time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes" "; continued Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, "sat up in bed; and listened." The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated "Lor!" and drew their chairs closer together. "I heerd it now, quite apparent," resumed Mr. Giles. " Somebody,' "I says" , is forcing of a door, or window; what's to be done? I'll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; or his throat,' "I says" , may be cut from his right ear to his left, without his ever knowing it.'" Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror. "I tossed off the clothes," said Giles, throwing away the table-cloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, "got softly out of bed; drew on a pair of" "Ladies present, Mr. Giles," murmured the tinker. "Of _shoes_, sir," said Giles, turning upon him, and laying great emphasis on the word; "seized the loaded pistol that always goes upstairs with the plate-basket; and walked on tiptoes to his room." Brittles,' "I says, when I had woke him," don't be frightened!'" "So you did," observed Brittles, in a low voice. " We're dead men, I think, Brittles,' "I says," continued Giles; " but don't be frightened.'" "_Was_ he frightened?" asked the cook. "Not a bit of it," replied Mr. Giles. "He was as firm ah! pretty near as firm as I was." "I should have died at once, I'm sure, if it had been me," observed the housemaid. "You're a woman," retorted Brittles, plucking up a little. "Brittles is right," said Mr. Giles, nodding his head, approvingly; "from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. We, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on Brittle's hob, and groped our way downstairs in the pitch dark, as it might be so." Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he started violently, in common | had done so, he looked feebly round for help, and groaned with pain. Trembling in every joint, from cold and exhaustion, he made an effort to stand upright; but, shuddering from head to foot, fell prostrate on the ground. After a short return of the stupor in which he had been so long plunged, Oliver: urged by a creeping sickness at his heart, which seemed to warn him that if he lay there, he must surely die: got upon his feet, and essayed to walk. His head was dizzy, and he staggered to and fro like a drunken man. But he kept up, nevertheless, and, with his head drooping languidly on his breast, went stumbling onward, he knew not whither. And now, hosts of bewildering and confused ideas came crowding on his mind. He seemed to be still walking between Sikes and Crackit, who were angrily disputing for the very words they said, sounded in his ears; and when he caught his own attention, as it were, by making some violent effort to save himself from falling, he found that he was talking to them. Then, he was alone with Sikes, plodding on as on the previous day; and as shadowy people passed them, he felt the robber's grasp upon his wrist. Suddenly, he started back at the report of firearms; there rose into the air, loud cries and shouts; lights gleamed before his eyes; all was noise and tumult, as some unseen hand bore him hurriedly away. Through all these rapid visions, there ran an undefined, uneasy consciousness of pain, which wearied and tormented him incessantly. Thus he staggered on, creeping, almost mechanically, between the bars of gates, or through hedge-gaps as they came in his way, until he reached a road. Here the rain began to fall so heavily, that it roused him. He looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was a house, which perhaps he could reach. Pitying his condition, they might have compassion on him; and if they did not, it would be better, he thought, to die near human beings, than in the lonely open fields. He summoned up all his strength for one last trial, and bent his faltering steps towards it. As he drew nearer to this house, a feeling come over him that he had seen it before. He remembered nothing of its details; but the shape and aspect of the building seemed familiar to him. That garden wall! On the grass inside, he had fallen on his knees last night, and prayed the two men's mercy. It was the very house they had attempted to rob. Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised the place, that, for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, and thought only of flight. Flight! He could scarcely stand: and if he were in full possession of all the best powers of his slight and youthful frame, whither could he fly? He pushed against the garden-gate; it was unlocked, and swung open on its hinges. He tottered across the lawn; climbed the steps; knocked faintly at the door; and, his whole strength failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico. It happened that about this time, Mr. Giles, Brittles, and the tinker, were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors of the night, with tea and sundries, in the kitchen. Not that it was Mr. Giles's habit to admit to too great familiarity the humbler servants: towards whom it was rather his wont to deport himself with a lofty affability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them of his superior position in society. But, death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched out before the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while, with his right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the robbery, to which his bearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathless interest. "It was about half-past two," said Mr. Giles, "or I wouldn't swear that it mightn't have been a little nearer three, when I woke up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here Mr. Giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes,) I fancied I heerd a noise." At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear. "Heerd a noise," continued Mr. Giles. "I says, at first," This is illusion'; "and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the noise again, distinct." "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting noise," replied Mr. Giles, looking round him. "More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater," suggested Brittles. "It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir," rejoined Mr. Giles; "but, at this time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes" "; continued Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, "sat up in bed; and listened." The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated "Lor!" and drew their chairs closer together. "I heerd it now, quite apparent," resumed Mr. Giles. " Somebody,' "I says" , is forcing of a door, or window; what's to be done? I'll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; or his throat,' "I says" , may be cut from his right ear to his left, without his ever knowing it.'" Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror. "I tossed off the clothes," said Giles, throwing away the table-cloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, "got softly out of bed; drew on a pair of" "Ladies present, Mr. Giles," murmured the tinker. "Of _shoes_, sir," said Giles, turning upon him, and laying great emphasis on the word; "seized the loaded pistol that always goes upstairs with the plate-basket; and walked on tiptoes to his room." Brittles,' "I says, when I had woke him," don't be frightened!'" "So you did," observed Brittles, in a low voice. " We're dead men, I think, Brittles,' "I says," continued Giles; " but don't be frightened.'" "_Was_ he frightened?" asked the cook. "Not a bit of it," replied Mr. Giles. "He was as firm ah! pretty near as firm as I was." "I should have died at once, I'm sure, if it had been me," observed the housemaid. "You're a woman," retorted Brittles, plucking up a little. "Brittles is right," said Mr. Giles, nodding his head, approvingly; "from a woman, nothing else was to be expected. We, being men, took a dark lantern that was standing on Brittle's hob, and groped our way downstairs in the pitch dark, as it might be so." Mr. Giles had risen from his seat, and taken two steps with his eyes shut, to accompany his description with appropriate action, when he started violently, in common with the rest of the company, and hurried back to his chair. The cook and housemaid screamed. "It was a knock," said Mr. Giles, assuming perfect serenity. "Open the door, somebody." Nobody moved. "It seems a strange sort of a thing, a knock coming at such a time in the morning," said Mr. Giles, surveying the pale faces which surrounded him, and looking very blank himself; "but the door must be opened. Do you hear, somebody?" Mr. Giles, as he spoke, looked at Brittles; but that young man, being naturally modest, probably considered himself nobody, and so held that the inquiry could not have any application to him; at all events, he tendered no reply. Mr. Giles directed an appealing glance at the tinker; but he had suddenly fallen asleep. The women were out of the question. "If Brittles would rather open the door, in the presence of witnesses," said Mr. Giles, after a short silence, "I am ready to make one." "So am I," said the tinker, waking up, as suddenly as he had fallen asleep. Brittles capitulated on these terms; and the party being somewhat re-assured by the discovery (made on throwing open the shutters) that it was now broad day, took their way upstairs; with the dogs in front. The two women, who were afraid to stay below, brought up the rear. By the advice of Mr. Giles, they all talked very loud, to warn any evil-disposed person outside, that they were strong in numbers; and by a master-stoke of policy, originating in the brain of the same ingenious gentleman, the dogs' tails were well pinched, in the hall, to make them bark savagely. These precautions having been taken, Mr. Giles held on fast by the tinker's arm (to prevent his running away, as he pleasantly said), and gave the word of command to open the door. Brittles obeyed; the group, peeping timorously over each other's shoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion. "A boy!" exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly, pushing the tinker into the background. "What's the matter with the eh? Why Brittles look here don't you know?" Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw Oliver, than he uttered a loud cry. Mr. Giles, seizing the boy by one leg and one arm (fortunately | they came in his way, until he reached a road. Here the rain began to fall so heavily, that it roused him. He looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was a house, which perhaps he could reach. Pitying his condition, they might have compassion on him; and if they did not, it would be better, he thought, to die near human beings, than in the lonely open fields. He summoned up all his strength for one last trial, and bent his faltering steps towards it. As he drew nearer to this house, a feeling come over him that he had seen it before. He remembered nothing of its details; but the shape and aspect of the building seemed familiar to him. That garden wall! On the grass inside, he had fallen on his knees last night, and prayed the two men's mercy. It was the very house they had attempted to rob. Oliver felt such fear come over him when he recognised the place, that, for the instant, he forgot the agony of his wound, and thought only of flight. Flight! He could scarcely stand: and if he were in full possession of all the best powers of his slight and youthful frame, whither could he fly? He pushed against the garden-gate; it was unlocked, and swung open on its hinges. He tottered across the lawn; climbed the steps; knocked faintly at the door; and, his whole strength failing him, sunk down against one of the pillars of the little portico. It happened that about this time, Mr. Giles, Brittles, and the tinker, were recruiting themselves, after the fatigues and terrors of the night, with tea and sundries, in the kitchen. Not that it was Mr. Giles's habit to admit to too great familiarity the humbler servants: towards whom it was rather his wont to deport himself with a lofty affability, which, while it gratified, could not fail to remind them of his superior position in society. But, death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals; so Mr. Giles sat with his legs stretched out before the kitchen fender, leaning his left arm on the table, while, with his right, he illustrated a circumstantial and minute account of the robbery, to which his bearers (but especially the cook and housemaid, who were of the party) listened with breathless interest. "It was about half-past two," said Mr. Giles, "or I wouldn't swear that it mightn't have been a little nearer three, when I woke up, and, turning round in my bed, as it might be so, (here Mr. Giles turned round in his chair, and pulled the corner of the table-cloth over him to imitate bed-clothes,) I fancied I heerd a noise." At this point of the narrative the cook turned pale, and asked the housemaid to shut the door: who asked Brittles, who asked the tinker, who pretended not to hear. "Heerd a noise," continued Mr. Giles. "I says, at first," This is illusion'; "and was composing myself off to sleep, when I heerd the noise again, distinct." "What sort of a noise?"<|quote|>asked the cook.</|quote|>"A kind of a busting noise," replied Mr. Giles, looking round him. "More like the noise of powdering a iron bar on a nutmeg-grater," suggested Brittles. "It was, when _you_ heerd it, sir," rejoined Mr. Giles; "but, at this time, it had a busting sound. I turned down the clothes" "; continued Giles, rolling back the table-cloth, "sat up in bed; and listened." The cook and housemaid simultaneously ejaculated "Lor!" and drew their chairs closer together. "I heerd it now, quite apparent," resumed Mr. Giles. " Somebody,' "I says" , is forcing of a door, or window; what's to be done? I'll call up that poor lad, Brittles, and save him from being murdered in his bed; or his throat,' "I says" , may be cut from his right ear to his left, without his ever knowing it.'" Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror. "I tossed off the clothes," said Giles, throwing away the table-cloth, and looking very hard at the cook and housemaid, "got softly out of bed; drew on a pair of" "Ladies present, Mr. Giles," murmured the tinker. "Of _shoes_, sir," said Giles, turning upon him, and laying great emphasis on the word; "seized the loaded pistol that always goes upstairs with the plate-basket; and walked on tiptoes to his room." Brittles,' "I says, when I had woke him," don't be frightened!'" "So you did," observed Brittles, in a low voice. " We're dead men, I think, Brittles,' "I says," continued Giles; " but don't be frightened.'" "_Was_ he frightened?" asked the cook. "Not a bit of it," replied Mr. Giles. "He was as firm ah! pretty near as firm as I was." "I should have died at once, I'm sure, if it had been me," observed the housemaid. "You're a woman," retorted Brittles, plucking up a little. "Brittles is right," said Mr. Giles, nodding | Oliver Twist |
"It's all about as curious as it can be," | The Gryphon | and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all | Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all came different!" the Mock Turtle | but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating "_You are old, Father William_," to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin." He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. "Stand up and repeat ''_Tis the | dreadful time." So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating "_You are old, Father William_," to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin." He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. "Stand up and repeat ''_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,'" said the Gryphon. "How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!" thought Alice; "I might as well be at school at once." However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she | fish came to _me_, and told me he was going a journey, I should say 'With what porpoise?'" "Don't you mean 'purpose'?" said Alice. "I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added "Come, let's hear some of _your_ adventures." "I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." "Explain all that," said the Mock Turtle. "No, no! The adventures first," said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: "explanations take such a dreadful time." So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating "_You are old, Father William_," to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin." He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. "Stand up and repeat ''_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,'" said the Gryphon. "How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!" thought Alice; "I might as well be at school at once." However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:-- "'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair." As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes." [later editions continued as follows When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] "That's | it's called a whiting?" "I never thought about it," said Alice. "Why?" "_It does the boots and shoes_," the Gryphon replied very solemnly. Alice was thoroughly puzzled. "Does the boots and shoes!" she repeated in a wondering tone. "Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?" said the Gryphon. "I mean, what makes them so shiny?" Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. "They're done with blacking, I believe." "Boots and shoes under the sea," the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, "are done with a whiting. Now you know." "And what are they made of?" Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. "Soles and eels, of course," the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: "any shrimp could have told you that." "If I'd been the whiting," said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, "I'd have said to the porpoise, 'Keep back, please: we don't want _you_ with us!'" "They were obliged to have him with them," the Mock Turtle said: "no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise." "Wouldn't it really?" said Alice in a tone of great surprise. "Of course not," said the Mock Turtle: "why, if a fish came to _me_, and told me he was going a journey, I should say 'With what porpoise?'" "Don't you mean 'purpose'?" said Alice. "I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added "Come, let's hear some of _your_ adventures." "I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." "Explain all that," said the Mock Turtle. "No, no! The adventures first," said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: "explanations take such a dreadful time." So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating "_You are old, Father William_," to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin." He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. "Stand up and repeat ''_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,'" said the Gryphon. "How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!" thought Alice; "I might as well be at school at once." However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:-- "'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair." As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes." [later editions continued as follows When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] "That's different from what _I_ used to say when I was a child," said the Gryphon. "Well, I never heard it before," said the Mock Turtle; "but it sounds uncommon nonsense." Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would _ever_ happen in a natural way again. "I should like to have it explained," said the Mock Turtle. "She can't explain it," said the Gryphon hastily. "Go on with the next verse." "But about his toes?" the Mock Turtle persisted. "How _could_ he turn them out with his nose, you know?" "It's the first position in dancing." Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. "Go on with the next verse," the Gryphon repeated impatiently: "it begins" '_I passed by his garden_.'" Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:-- "I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie--" [later editions continued as follows The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, While the Owl had the dish as | you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?" "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" "But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance-- Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance." "What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied. "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The further off from England the nearer is to France-- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?" "Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch," said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: "and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!" "Oh, as to the whiting," said the Mock Turtle, "they--you've seen them, of course?" "Yes," said Alice, "I've often seen them at dinn--" she checked herself hastily. "I don't know where Dinn may be," said the Mock Turtle, "but if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're like." "I believe so," Alice replied thoughtfully. "They have their tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs." "You're wrong about the crumbs," said the Mock Turtle: "crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they _have_ their tails in their mouths; and the reason is--" here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes.--" "Tell her about the reason and all that," he said to the Gryphon. "The reason is," said the Gryphon, "that they _would_ go with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn't get them out again. That's all." "Thank you," said Alice, "it's very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before." "I can tell you more than that, if you like," said the Gryphon. "Do you know why it's called a whiting?" "I never thought about it," said Alice. "Why?" "_It does the boots and shoes_," the Gryphon replied very solemnly. Alice was thoroughly puzzled. "Does the boots and shoes!" she repeated in a wondering tone. "Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?" said the Gryphon. "I mean, what makes them so shiny?" Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. "They're done with blacking, I believe." "Boots and shoes under the sea," the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, "are done with a whiting. Now you know." "And what are they made of?" Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. "Soles and eels, of course," the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: "any shrimp could have told you that." "If I'd been the whiting," said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, "I'd have said to the porpoise, 'Keep back, please: we don't want _you_ with us!'" "They were obliged to have him with them," the Mock Turtle said: "no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise." "Wouldn't it really?" said Alice in a tone of great surprise. "Of course not," said the Mock Turtle: "why, if a fish came to _me_, and told me he was going a journey, I should say 'With what porpoise?'" "Don't you mean 'purpose'?" said Alice. "I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added "Come, let's hear some of _your_ adventures." "I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." "Explain all that," said the Mock Turtle. "No, no! The adventures first," said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: "explanations take such a dreadful time." So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating "_You are old, Father William_," to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin." He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. "Stand up and repeat ''_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,'" said the Gryphon. "How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!" thought Alice; "I might as well be at school at once." However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:-- "'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair." As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes." [later editions continued as follows When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] "That's different from what _I_ used to say when I was a child," said the Gryphon. "Well, I never heard it before," said the Mock Turtle; "but it sounds uncommon nonsense." Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would _ever_ happen in a natural way again. "I should like to have it explained," said the Mock Turtle. "She can't explain it," said the Gryphon hastily. "Go on with the next verse." "But about his toes?" the Mock Turtle persisted. "How _could_ he turn them out with his nose, you know?" "It's the first position in dancing." Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. "Go on with the next verse," the Gryphon repeated impatiently: "it begins" '_I passed by his garden_.'" Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:-- "I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie--" [later editions continued as follows The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, And concluded the banquet--] "What _is_ the use of repeating all that stuff," the Mock Turtle interrupted, "if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far the most confusing thing _I_ ever heard!" "Yes, I think you'd better leave off," said the Gryphon: and Alice was only too glad to do so. "Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?" the Gryphon went on. "Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?" "Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind," Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, "Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her '_Turtle Soup_,' will you, old fellow?" The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:-- "Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Beau--ootiful Soo--oop! Beau--ootiful Soo--oop! Soo--oop of the e--e--evening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup!" "Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, Game, or any other dish? Who would not give all else for two p ennyworth only of beautiful Soup? Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? Beau--ootiful Soo--oop! Beau--ootiful Soo--oop! Soo--oop of the e--e--evening, Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!" "Chorus again!" cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of "The trial's beginning!" was heard in the distance. "Come on!" cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song. "What trial is it?" Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon only answered "Come on!" and ran the faster, while more and more faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the melancholy words:-- "Soo--oop of the e--e--evening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup!" CHAPTER XI. Who Stole the Tarts? The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them--all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; | fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn't get them out again. That's all." "Thank you," said Alice, "it's very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before." "I can tell you more than that, if you like," said the Gryphon. "Do you know why it's called a whiting?" "I never thought about it," said Alice. "Why?" "_It does the boots and shoes_," the Gryphon replied very solemnly. Alice was thoroughly puzzled. "Does the boots and shoes!" she repeated in a wondering tone. "Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?" said the Gryphon. "I mean, what makes them so shiny?" Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. "They're done with blacking, I believe." "Boots and shoes under the sea," the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, "are done with a whiting. Now you know." "And what are they made of?" Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. "Soles and eels, of course," the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: "any shrimp could have told you that." "If I'd been the whiting," said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, "I'd have said to the porpoise, 'Keep back, please: we don't want _you_ with us!'" "They were obliged to have him with them," the Mock Turtle said: "no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise." "Wouldn't it really?" said Alice in a tone of great surprise. "Of course not," said the Mock Turtle: "why, if a fish came to _me_, and told me he was going a journey, I should say 'With what porpoise?'" "Don't you mean 'purpose'?" said Alice. "I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added "Come, let's hear some of _your_ adventures." "I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning," said Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." "Explain all that," said the Mock Turtle. "No, no! The adventures first," said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: "explanations take such a dreadful time." So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so _very_ wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating "_You are old, Father William_," to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said "That's very curious."<|quote|>"It's all about as curious as it can be,"</|quote|>said the Gryphon. "It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin." He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. "Stand up and repeat ''_Tis the voice of the sluggard_,'" said the Gryphon. "How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!" thought Alice; "I might as well be at school at once." However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:-- "'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair." As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes." [later editions continued as follows When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] "That's different from what _I_ used to | Alices Adventures In Wonderland |
"It's silly," | Edna | there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be | he said. "Go on in there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be another row." "Damned Biarritz swine," | thrown out," Edna said. "By the police," said Mike. "There's some people in there that don't like me." "I've kept them out of four fights," Edna said. "You've got to help me." Bill's face was red. "Come back in, Edna," he said. "Go on in there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be another row." "Damned Biarritz swine," Bill said. "Come on," Mike said. "After all, it's a pub. They can't occupy a whole pub." "Good old Mike," Bill said. "Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta." "They're so bloody," Mike | Romero were gone. The coffee-glasses and our three empty cognac-glasses were on the table. A waiter came with a cloth and picked up the glasses and mopped off the table. CHAPTER 17 Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the girl's name. "We've been thrown out," Edna said. "By the police," said Mike. "There's some people in there that don't like me." "I've kept them out of four fights," Edna said. "You've got to help me." Bill's face was red. "Come back in, Edna," he said. "Go on in there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be another row." "Damned Biarritz swine," Bill said. "Come on," Mike said. "After all, it's a pub. They can't occupy a whole pub." "Good old Mike," Bill said. "Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta." "They're so bloody," Mike said. "I hate the English." "They can't insult Mike," Bill said. "Mike is a swell fellow. They can't insult Mike. I won't stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?" His voice broke. "Who cares?" Mike said. "I don't care. Jake doesn't care. Do _you_ care?" "No," Edna | I'll get you one to-night." I stood up. Romero rose, too. "Sit down," I said. "I must go and find our friends and bring them here." He looked at me. It was a final look to ask if it were understood. It was understood all right. "Sit down," Brett said to him. "You must teach me Spanish." He sat down and looked at her across the table. I went out. The hard-eyed people at the bull-fighter table watched me go. It was not pleasant. When I came back and looked in the caf , twenty minutes later, Brett and Pedro Romero were gone. The coffee-glasses and our three empty cognac-glasses were on the table. A waiter came with a cloth and picked up the glasses and mopped off the table. CHAPTER 17 Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the girl's name. "We've been thrown out," Edna said. "By the police," said Mike. "There's some people in there that don't like me." "I've kept them out of four fights," Edna said. "You've got to help me." Bill's face was red. "Come back in, Edna," he said. "Go on in there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be another row." "Damned Biarritz swine," Bill said. "Come on," Mike said. "After all, it's a pub. They can't occupy a whole pub." "Good old Mike," Bill said. "Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta." "They're so bloody," Mike said. "I hate the English." "They can't insult Mike," Bill said. "Mike is a swell fellow. They can't insult Mike. I won't stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?" His voice broke. "Who cares?" Mike said. "I don't care. Jake doesn't care. Do _you_ care?" "No," Edna said. "Are you a bankrupt?" "Of course I am. You don't care, do you, Bill?" Bill put his arm around Mike's shoulder. "I wish to hell I was a bankrupt. I'd show those bastards." "They're just English," Mike said. "It never makes any difference what the English say." "The dirty swine," Bill said. "I'm going to clean them out." "Bill," Edna looked at me. "Please don't go in again, Bill. They're so stupid." "That's it," said Mike. "They're stupid. I knew that was what it was." "They can't say things like that about Mike," Bill said. "Do you know them?" | going to die." I tapped with my finger-tips on the table. Romero saw it. He shook his head. "No. Don't do that. The bulls are my best friends." I translated to Brett. "You kill your friends?" she asked. "Always," he said in English, and laughed. "So they don't kill me." He looked at her across the table. "You know English well." "Yes," he said. "Pretty well, sometimes. But I must not let anybody know. It would be very bad, a torero who speaks English." "Why?" asked Brett. "It would be bad. The people would not like it. Not yet." "Why not?" "They would not like it. Bull-fighters are not like that." "What are bull-fighters like?" He laughed and tipped his hat down over his eyes and changed the angle of his cigar and the expression of his face. "Like at the table," he said. I glanced over. He had mimicked exactly the expression of Nacional. He smiled, his face natural again. "No. I must forget English." "Don't forget it, yet," Brett said. "No?" "No." "All right." He laughed again. "I would like a hat like that," Brett said. "Good. I'll get you one." "Right. See that you do." "I will. I'll get you one to-night." I stood up. Romero rose, too. "Sit down," I said. "I must go and find our friends and bring them here." He looked at me. It was a final look to ask if it were understood. It was understood all right. "Sit down," Brett said to him. "You must teach me Spanish." He sat down and looked at her across the table. I went out. The hard-eyed people at the bull-fighter table watched me go. It was not pleasant. When I came back and looked in the caf , twenty minutes later, Brett and Pedro Romero were gone. The coffee-glasses and our three empty cognac-glasses were on the table. A waiter came with a cloth and picked up the glasses and mopped off the table. CHAPTER 17 Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the girl's name. "We've been thrown out," Edna said. "By the police," said Mike. "There's some people in there that don't like me." "I've kept them out of four fights," Edna said. "You've got to help me." Bill's face was red. "Come back in, Edna," he said. "Go on in there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be another row." "Damned Biarritz swine," Bill said. "Come on," Mike said. "After all, it's a pub. They can't occupy a whole pub." "Good old Mike," Bill said. "Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta." "They're so bloody," Mike said. "I hate the English." "They can't insult Mike," Bill said. "Mike is a swell fellow. They can't insult Mike. I won't stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?" His voice broke. "Who cares?" Mike said. "I don't care. Jake doesn't care. Do _you_ care?" "No," Edna said. "Are you a bankrupt?" "Of course I am. You don't care, do you, Bill?" Bill put his arm around Mike's shoulder. "I wish to hell I was a bankrupt. I'd show those bastards." "They're just English," Mike said. "It never makes any difference what the English say." "The dirty swine," Bill said. "I'm going to clean them out." "Bill," Edna looked at me. "Please don't go in again, Bill. They're so stupid." "That's it," said Mike. "They're stupid. I knew that was what it was." "They can't say things like that about Mike," Bill said. "Do you know them?" I asked Mike. "No. I never saw them. They say they know me." "I won't stand it," Bill said. "Come on. Let's go over to the Suizo," I said. "They're a bunch of Edna's friends from Biarritz," Bill said. "They're simply stupid," Edna said. "One of them's Charley Blackman, from Chicago," Bill said. "I was never in Chicago," Mike said. Edna started to laugh and could not stop. "Take me away from here," she said, "you bankrupts." "What kind of a row was it?" I asked Edna. We were walking across the square to the Suizo. Bill was gone. "I don't know what happened, but some one had the police called to keep Mike out of the back room. There were some people that had known Mike at Cannes. What's the matter with Mike?" "Probably he owes them money" I said. "That's what people usually get bitter about." In front of the ticket-booths out in the square there were two lines of people waiting. They were sitting on chairs or crouched on the ground with blankets and newspapers around them. They were waiting for the wickets to open in the morning to buy tickets for the bull-fight. The night was | to come over and have a drink." "Not yet. He'll come over." "I can't look at him." "He's nice to look at," I said. "I've always done just what I wanted." "I know." "I do feel such a bitch." "Well," I said. "My God!" said Brett, "the things a woman goes through." "Yes?" "Oh, I do feel such a bitch." I looked across at the table. Pedro Romero smiled. He said something to the other people at his table, and stood up. He came over to our table. I stood up and we shook hands. "Won't you have a drink?" "You must have a drink with me," he said. He seated himself, asking Brett's permission without saying anything. He had very nice manners. But he kept on smoking his cigar. It went well with his face. "You like cigars?" I asked. "Oh, yes. I always smoke cigars." It was part of his system of authority. It made him seem older. I noticed his skin. It was clear and smooth and very brown. There was a triangular scar on his cheek-bone. I saw he was watching Brett. He felt there was something between them. He must have felt it when Brett gave him her hand. He was being very careful. I think he was sure, but he did not want to make any mistake. "You fight to-morrow?" I said. "Yes," he said. "Algabeno was hurt to-day in Madrid. Did you hear?" "No," I said. "Badly?" He shook his head. "Nothing. Here," he showed his hand. Brett reached out and spread the fingers apart. "Oh!" he said in English, "you tell fortunes?" "Sometimes. Do you mind?" "No. I like it." He spread his hand flat on the table. "Tell me I live for always, and be a millionaire." He was still very polite, but he was surer of himself. "Look," he said, "do you see any bulls in my hand?" He laughed. His hand was very fine and the wrist was small. "There are thousands of bulls," Brett said. She was not at all nervous now. She looked lovely. "Good," Romero laughed. "At a thousand duros apiece," he said to me in Spanish. "Tell me some more." "It's a good hand," Brett said. "I think he'll live a long time." "Say it to me. Not to your friend." "I said you'd live a long time." "I know it," Romero said. "I'm never going to die." I tapped with my finger-tips on the table. Romero saw it. He shook his head. "No. Don't do that. The bulls are my best friends." I translated to Brett. "You kill your friends?" she asked. "Always," he said in English, and laughed. "So they don't kill me." He looked at her across the table. "You know English well." "Yes," he said. "Pretty well, sometimes. But I must not let anybody know. It would be very bad, a torero who speaks English." "Why?" asked Brett. "It would be bad. The people would not like it. Not yet." "Why not?" "They would not like it. Bull-fighters are not like that." "What are bull-fighters like?" He laughed and tipped his hat down over his eyes and changed the angle of his cigar and the expression of his face. "Like at the table," he said. I glanced over. He had mimicked exactly the expression of Nacional. He smiled, his face natural again. "No. I must forget English." "Don't forget it, yet," Brett said. "No?" "No." "All right." He laughed again. "I would like a hat like that," Brett said. "Good. I'll get you one." "Right. See that you do." "I will. I'll get you one to-night." I stood up. Romero rose, too. "Sit down," I said. "I must go and find our friends and bring them here." He looked at me. It was a final look to ask if it were understood. It was understood all right. "Sit down," Brett said to him. "You must teach me Spanish." He sat down and looked at her across the table. I went out. The hard-eyed people at the bull-fighter table watched me go. It was not pleasant. When I came back and looked in the caf , twenty minutes later, Brett and Pedro Romero were gone. The coffee-glasses and our three empty cognac-glasses were on the table. A waiter came with a cloth and picked up the glasses and mopped off the table. CHAPTER 17 Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the girl's name. "We've been thrown out," Edna said. "By the police," said Mike. "There's some people in there that don't like me." "I've kept them out of four fights," Edna said. "You've got to help me." Bill's face was red. "Come back in, Edna," he said. "Go on in there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be another row." "Damned Biarritz swine," Bill said. "Come on," Mike said. "After all, it's a pub. They can't occupy a whole pub." "Good old Mike," Bill said. "Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta." "They're so bloody," Mike said. "I hate the English." "They can't insult Mike," Bill said. "Mike is a swell fellow. They can't insult Mike. I won't stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?" His voice broke. "Who cares?" Mike said. "I don't care. Jake doesn't care. Do _you_ care?" "No," Edna said. "Are you a bankrupt?" "Of course I am. You don't care, do you, Bill?" Bill put his arm around Mike's shoulder. "I wish to hell I was a bankrupt. I'd show those bastards." "They're just English," Mike said. "It never makes any difference what the English say." "The dirty swine," Bill said. "I'm going to clean them out." "Bill," Edna looked at me. "Please don't go in again, Bill. They're so stupid." "That's it," said Mike. "They're stupid. I knew that was what it was." "They can't say things like that about Mike," Bill said. "Do you know them?" I asked Mike. "No. I never saw them. They say they know me." "I won't stand it," Bill said. "Come on. Let's go over to the Suizo," I said. "They're a bunch of Edna's friends from Biarritz," Bill said. "They're simply stupid," Edna said. "One of them's Charley Blackman, from Chicago," Bill said. "I was never in Chicago," Mike said. Edna started to laugh and could not stop. "Take me away from here," she said, "you bankrupts." "What kind of a row was it?" I asked Edna. We were walking across the square to the Suizo. Bill was gone. "I don't know what happened, but some one had the police called to keep Mike out of the back room. There were some people that had known Mike at Cannes. What's the matter with Mike?" "Probably he owes them money" I said. "That's what people usually get bitter about." In front of the ticket-booths out in the square there were two lines of people waiting. They were sitting on chairs or crouched on the ground with blankets and newspapers around them. They were waiting for the wickets to open in the morning to buy tickets for the bull-fight. The night was clearing and the moon was out. Some of the people in the line were sleeping. At the Caf Suizo we had just sat down and ordered Fundador when Robert Cohn came up. "Where's Brett?" he asked. "I don't know." "She was with you." "She must have gone to bed." "She's not." "I don't know where she is." His face was sallow under the light. He was standing up. "Tell me where she is." "Sit down," I said. "I don't know where she is." "The hell you don't!" "You can shut your face." "Tell me where Brett is." "I'll not tell you a damn thing." "You know where she is." "If I did I wouldn't tell you." "Oh, go to hell, Cohn," Mike called from the table. "Brett's gone off with the bull-fighter chap. They're on their honeymoon." "You shut up." "Oh, go to hell!" Mike said languidly. "Is that where she is?" Cohn turned to me. "Go to hell!" "She was with you. Is that where she is?" "Go to hell!" "I'll make you tell me" "--he stepped forward--" "you damned pimp." I swung at him and he ducked. I saw his face duck sideways in the light. He hit me and I sat down on the pavement. As I started to get on my feet he hit me twice. I went down backward under a table. I tried to get up and felt I did not have any legs. I felt I must get on my feet and try and hit him. Mike helped me up. Some one poured a carafe of water on my head. Mike had an arm around me, and I found I was sitting on a chair. Mike was pulling at my ears. "I say, you were cold," Mike said. "Where the hell were you?" "Oh, I was around." "You didn't want to mix in it?" "He knocked Mike down, too," Edna said. "He didn't knock me out," Mike said. "I just lay there." "Does this happen every night at your fiestas?" Edna asked. "Wasn't that Mr. Cohn?" "I'm all right," I said. "My head's a little wobbly." There were several waiters and a crowd of people standing around. "Vaya!" said Mike. "Get away. Go on." The waiters moved the people away. "It was quite a thing to watch," Edna said. "He must be a boxer." "He is." "I wish Bill had been here," Edna | surer of himself. "Look," he said, "do you see any bulls in my hand?" He laughed. His hand was very fine and the wrist was small. "There are thousands of bulls," Brett said. She was not at all nervous now. She looked lovely. "Good," Romero laughed. "At a thousand duros apiece," he said to me in Spanish. "Tell me some more." "It's a good hand," Brett said. "I think he'll live a long time." "Say it to me. Not to your friend." "I said you'd live a long time." "I know it," Romero said. "I'm never going to die." I tapped with my finger-tips on the table. Romero saw it. He shook his head. "No. Don't do that. The bulls are my best friends." I translated to Brett. "You kill your friends?" she asked. "Always," he said in English, and laughed. "So they don't kill me." He looked at her across the table. "You know English well." "Yes," he said. "Pretty well, sometimes. But I must not let anybody know. It would be very bad, a torero who speaks English." "Why?" asked Brett. "It would be bad. The people would not like it. Not yet." "Why not?" "They would not like it. Bull-fighters are not like that." "What are bull-fighters like?" He laughed and tipped his hat down over his eyes and changed the angle of his cigar and the expression of his face. "Like at the table," he said. I glanced over. He had mimicked exactly the expression of Nacional. He smiled, his face natural again. "No. I must forget English." "Don't forget it, yet," Brett said. "No?" "No." "All right." He laughed again. "I would like a hat like that," Brett said. "Good. I'll get you one." "Right. See that you do." "I will. I'll get you one to-night." I stood up. Romero rose, too. "Sit down," I said. "I must go and find our friends and bring them here." He looked at me. It was a final look to ask if it were understood. It was understood all right. "Sit down," Brett said to him. "You must teach me Spanish." He sat down and looked at her across the table. I went out. The hard-eyed people at the bull-fighter table watched me go. It was not pleasant. When I came back and looked in the caf , twenty minutes later, Brett and Pedro Romero were gone. The coffee-glasses and our three empty cognac-glasses were on the table. A waiter came with a cloth and picked up the glasses and mopped off the table. CHAPTER 17 Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the girl's name. "We've been thrown out," Edna said. "By the police," said Mike. "There's some people in there that don't like me." "I've kept them out of four fights," Edna said. "You've got to help me." Bill's face was red. "Come back in, Edna," he said. "Go on in there and dance with Mike."<|quote|>"It's silly,"</|quote|>Edna said. "There'll just be another row." "Damned Biarritz swine," Bill said. "Come on," Mike said. "After all, it's a pub. They can't occupy a whole pub." "Good old Mike," Bill said. "Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta." "They're so bloody," Mike said. "I hate the English." "They can't insult Mike," Bill said. "Mike is a swell fellow. They can't insult Mike. I won't stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?" His voice broke. "Who cares?" Mike said. "I don't care. Jake doesn't care. Do _you_ care?" "No," Edna said. "Are you a bankrupt?" "Of course I am. You don't care, do you, Bill?" Bill put his arm around Mike's shoulder. "I wish to hell I was a bankrupt. I'd show those bastards." "They're just English," Mike said. "It never makes any difference what the English say." "The dirty swine," Bill said. "I'm going to clean them out." "Bill," Edna looked at me. "Please don't go in again, Bill. They're so stupid." "That's it," said Mike. "They're stupid. I knew that was what it was." "They can't say things like that about Mike," Bill said. "Do you know them?" I asked Mike. "No. I never saw them. They say they know me." "I won't stand it," Bill said. "Come on. Let's go over to the Suizo," I said. "They're a bunch of Edna's friends from Biarritz," Bill said. "They're simply stupid," Edna said. "One of them's Charley Blackman, from Chicago," Bill said. "I was never in Chicago," Mike said. Edna started to laugh and could not stop. "Take me away from here," she said, "you bankrupts." "What kind of a row was it?" I asked Edna. We were walking across the square to the Suizo. Bill was gone. "I don't know what happened, but some one had the police called to keep Mike out of the back room. | The Sun Also Rises |
"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!" | Mr. Woodhouse | he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, | not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. | a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house | with Miss Taylor too; and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her own?" "A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own? This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my dear." "How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We shall be always | could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter's marrying, nor could ever speak of her but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection, when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her own?" "A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own? This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my dear." "How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding visit very soon." "My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could not walk half so far." "No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, to be sure." "The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit?" "They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have settled all that already. We talked | much increased by his constitution and habits; for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time. Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house, and give her pleasant society again. Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town, to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter's marrying, nor could ever speak of her but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection, when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her own?" "A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own? This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my dear." "How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding visit very soon." "My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could not walk half so far." "No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, to be sure." "The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit?" "They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going to Randalls, because of his daughter's being housemaid there. I only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing, papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you mentioned her--James is so obliged to you!" "I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes over to see his | was Miss Taylor's loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any continuance. The wedding over, and the bride-people gone, her father and herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to cheer a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after dinner, as usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost. The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and promoted the match; but it was a black morning's work for her. The want of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her past kindness--the kindness, the affection of sixteen years--how she had taught and how she had played with her from five years old--how she had devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in health--and how nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the last seven years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed Isabella's marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of hers--one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was going only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic, she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not meet her in conversation, rational or playful. The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits; for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time. Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house, and give her pleasant society again. Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town, to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter's marrying, nor could ever speak of her but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection, when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her own?" "A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own? This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my dear." "How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding visit very soon." "My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could not walk half so far." "No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, to be sure." "The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit?" "They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going to Randalls, because of his daughter's being housemaid there. I only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing, papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you mentioned her--James is so obliged to you!" "I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will be able to tell her how we all are." Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards walked in and made it unnecessary. Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella's husband. He lived about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome, and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after some days' absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated Mr. Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which always did him good; and his many inquiries after "poor Isabella" and her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr. Woodhouse gratefully observed, "It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley, to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must have had a shocking walk." "Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I must draw back from your great fire." "But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not catch cold." "Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them." "Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding." "By the bye--I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you all behave? Who cried most?" "Ah! poor Miss Taylor! 'Tis a sad business." "Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say" 'poor Miss Taylor.' "I have a great regard for you and | speak every thought as it arose, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was going only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic, she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not meet her in conversation, rational or playful. The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits; for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time. Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house, and give her pleasant society again. Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town, to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter's marrying, nor could ever speak of her but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection, when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,<|quote|>"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!"</|quote|>"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her own?" "A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own? This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my dear." "How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding visit very soon." "My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could not walk half so far." "No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, to be sure." "The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our visit?" "They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going to Randalls, because of his daughter's being housemaid there. I only doubt | Emma |
"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true." | Newland Archer | Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made | As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, | carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window. She drew away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing. As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper: "What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?" "Why--you know it will, don't you?" "Your vision of you and me together?" She burst into a sudden hard laugh. "You choose your place well | blind, then, you must see that this can't last." "What can't?" "Our being together--and not together." "No. You ought not to have come today," she said in an altered voice; and suddenly she turned, flung her arms about him and pressed her lips to his. At the same moment the carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window. She drew away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing. As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper: "What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?" "Why--you know it will, don't you?" "Your vision of you and me together?" She burst into a sudden hard laugh. "You choose your place well to put it to me!" "Do you mean because we're in my wife's brougham? Shall we get out and walk, then? I don't suppose you mind a little snow?" She laughed again, more gently. "No; I shan't get out and walk, because my business is to get to Granny's as | Gorgon." "Well--it hasn't blinded you! You've seen that she's just an old bogey like all the others." "She doesn't blind one; but she dries up one's tears." The answer checked the pleading on Archer's lips: it seemed to come from depths of experience beyond his reach. The slow advance of the ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer and Madame Olenska against each other. The young man, trembling, felt the pressure of her shoulder, and passed his arm about her. "If you're not blind, then, you must see that this can't last." "What can't?" "Our being together--and not together." "No. You ought not to have come today," she said in an altered voice; and suddenly she turned, flung her arms about him and pressed her lips to his. At the same moment the carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window. She drew away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing. As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper: "What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?" "Why--you know it will, don't you?" "Your vision of you and me together?" She burst into a sudden hard laugh. "You choose your place well to put it to me!" "Do you mean because we're in my wife's brougham? Shall we get out and walk, then? I don't suppose you mind a little snow?" She laughed again, more gently. "No; I shan't get out and walk, because my business is to get to Granny's as quickly as I can. And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities." "I don't know what you mean by realities. The only reality to me is this." She met the words with a long silence, during which the carriage rolled down an obscure side-street and then turned into the searching illumination of Fifth Avenue. "Is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your mistress--since I can't be your wife?" she asked. The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women of his class fought shy of, | "He writes to her, then." "M. Riviere went to see you?" "Yes: didn't you know?" "No," she answered simply. "And you're not surprised?" She hesitated. "Why should I be? He told me in Boston that he knew you; that he'd met you in England I think." "Ellen--I must ask you one thing." "Yes." "I wanted to ask it after I saw him, but I couldn't put it in a letter. It was Riviere who helped you to get away--when you left your husband?" His heart was beating suffocatingly. Would she meet this question with the same composure? "Yes: I owe him a great debt," she answered, without the least tremor in her quiet voice. Her tone was so natural, so almost indifferent, that Archer's turmoil subsided. Once more she had managed, by her sheer simplicity, to make him feel stupidly conventional just when he thought he was flinging convention to the winds. "I think you're the most honest woman I ever met!" he exclaimed. "Oh, no--but probably one of the least fussy," she answered, a smile in her voice. "Call it what you like: you look at things as they are." "Ah--I've had to. I've had to look at the Gorgon." "Well--it hasn't blinded you! You've seen that she's just an old bogey like all the others." "She doesn't blind one; but she dries up one's tears." The answer checked the pleading on Archer's lips: it seemed to come from depths of experience beyond his reach. The slow advance of the ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer and Madame Olenska against each other. The young man, trembling, felt the pressure of her shoulder, and passed his arm about her. "If you're not blind, then, you must see that this can't last." "What can't?" "Our being together--and not together." "No. You ought not to have come today," she said in an altered voice; and suddenly she turned, flung her arms about him and pressed her lips to his. At the same moment the carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window. She drew away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing. As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper: "What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?" "Why--you know it will, don't you?" "Your vision of you and me together?" She burst into a sudden hard laugh. "You choose your place well to put it to me!" "Do you mean because we're in my wife's brougham? Shall we get out and walk, then? I don't suppose you mind a little snow?" She laughed again, more gently. "No; I shan't get out and walk, because my business is to get to Granny's as quickly as I can. And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities." "I don't know what you mean by realities. The only reality to me is this." She met the words with a long silence, during which the carriage rolled down an obscure side-street and then turned into the searching illumination of Fifth Avenue. "Is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your mistress--since I can't be your wife?" she asked. The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women of his class fought shy of, even when their talk flitted closest about the topic. He noticed that Madame Olenska pronounced it as if it had a recognised place in her vocabulary, and he wondered if it had been used familiarly in her presence in the horrible life she had fled from. Her question pulled him up with a jerk, and he floundered. "I want--I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that--categories like that--won't exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter." She drew a deep sigh that ended in another laugh. "Oh, my dear--where is that country? Have you ever been there?" she asked; and as he remained sullenly dumb she went on: "I know so many who've tried to find it; and, believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside stations: at places like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo--and it wasn't at all different from the old world they'd left, but only rather smaller and dingier and more promiscuous." He had never heard her speak in such a tone, and he remembered the | no, no--she's much better--she's all right, really. There--we've passed it!" he exclaimed, as if that made all the difference. Her hand remained in his, and as the carriage lurched across the gang-plank onto the ferry he bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove, and kissed her palm as if he had kissed a relic. She disengaged herself with a faint smile, and he said: "You didn't expect me today?" "Oh, no." "I meant to go to Washington to see you. I'd made all my arrangements--I very nearly crossed you in the train." "Oh--" she exclaimed, as if terrified by the narrowness of their escape. "Do you know--I hardly remembered you?" "Hardly remembered me?" "I mean: how shall I explain? I--it's always so. EACH TIME YOU HAPPEN TO ME ALL OVER AGAIN." "Oh, yes: I know! I know!" "Does it--do I too: to you?" he insisted. She nodded, looking out of the window. "Ellen--Ellen--Ellen!" She made no answer, and he sat in silence, watching her profile grow indistinct against the snow-streaked dusk beyond the window. What had she been doing in all those four long months, he wondered? How little they knew of each other, after all! The precious moments were slipping away, but he had forgotten everything that he had meant to say to her and could only helplessly brood on the mystery of their remoteness and their proximity, which seemed to be symbolised by the fact of their sitting so close to each other, and yet being unable to see each other's faces. "What a pretty carriage! Is it May's?" she asked, suddenly turning her face from the window. "Yes." "It was May who sent you to fetch me, then? How kind of her!" He made no answer for a moment; then he said explosively: "Your husband's secretary came to see me the day after we met in Boston." In his brief letter to her he had made no allusion to M. Riviere's visit, and his intention had been to bury the incident in his bosom. But her reminder that they were in his wife's carriage provoked him to an impulse of retaliation. He would see if she liked his reference to Riviere any better than he liked hers to May! As on certain other occasions when he had expected to shake her out of her usual composure, she betrayed no sign of surprise: and at once he concluded: "He writes to her, then." "M. Riviere went to see you?" "Yes: didn't you know?" "No," she answered simply. "And you're not surprised?" She hesitated. "Why should I be? He told me in Boston that he knew you; that he'd met you in England I think." "Ellen--I must ask you one thing." "Yes." "I wanted to ask it after I saw him, but I couldn't put it in a letter. It was Riviere who helped you to get away--when you left your husband?" His heart was beating suffocatingly. Would she meet this question with the same composure? "Yes: I owe him a great debt," she answered, without the least tremor in her quiet voice. Her tone was so natural, so almost indifferent, that Archer's turmoil subsided. Once more she had managed, by her sheer simplicity, to make him feel stupidly conventional just when he thought he was flinging convention to the winds. "I think you're the most honest woman I ever met!" he exclaimed. "Oh, no--but probably one of the least fussy," she answered, a smile in her voice. "Call it what you like: you look at things as they are." "Ah--I've had to. I've had to look at the Gorgon." "Well--it hasn't blinded you! You've seen that she's just an old bogey like all the others." "She doesn't blind one; but she dries up one's tears." The answer checked the pleading on Archer's lips: it seemed to come from depths of experience beyond his reach. The slow advance of the ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer and Madame Olenska against each other. The young man, trembling, felt the pressure of her shoulder, and passed his arm about her. "If you're not blind, then, you must see that this can't last." "What can't?" "Our being together--and not together." "No. You ought not to have come today," she said in an altered voice; and suddenly she turned, flung her arms about him and pressed her lips to his. At the same moment the carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window. She drew away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing. As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper: "What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?" "Why--you know it will, don't you?" "Your vision of you and me together?" She burst into a sudden hard laugh. "You choose your place well to put it to me!" "Do you mean because we're in my wife's brougham? Shall we get out and walk, then? I don't suppose you mind a little snow?" She laughed again, more gently. "No; I shan't get out and walk, because my business is to get to Granny's as quickly as I can. And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities." "I don't know what you mean by realities. The only reality to me is this." She met the words with a long silence, during which the carriage rolled down an obscure side-street and then turned into the searching illumination of Fifth Avenue. "Is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your mistress--since I can't be your wife?" she asked. The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women of his class fought shy of, even when their talk flitted closest about the topic. He noticed that Madame Olenska pronounced it as if it had a recognised place in her vocabulary, and he wondered if it had been used familiarly in her presence in the horrible life she had fled from. Her question pulled him up with a jerk, and he floundered. "I want--I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that--categories like that--won't exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter." She drew a deep sigh that ended in another laugh. "Oh, my dear--where is that country? Have you ever been there?" she asked; and as he remained sullenly dumb she went on: "I know so many who've tried to find it; and, believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside stations: at places like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo--and it wasn't at all different from the old world they'd left, but only rather smaller and dingier and more promiscuous." He had never heard her speak in such a tone, and he remembered the phrase she had used a little while before. "Yes, the Gorgon HAS dried your tears," he said. "Well, she opened my eyes too; it's a delusion to say that she blinds people. What she does is just the contrary--she fastens their eyelids open, so that they're never again in the blessed darkness. Isn't there a Chinese torture like that? There ought to be. Ah, believe me, it's a miserable little country!" The carriage had crossed Forty-second Street: May's sturdy brougham-horse was carrying them northward as if he had been a Kentucky trotter. Archer choked with the sense of wasted minutes and vain words. "Then what, exactly, is your plan for us?" he asked. "For US? But there's no US in that sense! We're near each other only if we stay far from each other. Then we can be ourselves. Otherwise we're only Newland Archer, the husband of Ellen Olenska's cousin, and Ellen Olenska, the cousin of Newland Archer's wife, trying to be happy behind the backs of the people who trust them." "Ah, I'm beyond that," he groaned. "No, you're not! You've never been beyond. And I have," she said, in a strange voice, "and I know what it looks like there." He sat silent, dazed with inarticulate pain. Then he groped in the darkness of the carriage for the little bell that signalled orders to the coachman. He remembered that May rang twice when she wished to stop. He pressed the bell, and the carriage drew up beside the curbstone. "Why are we stopping? This is not Granny's," Madame Olenska exclaimed. "No: I shall get out here," he stammered, opening the door and jumping to the pavement. By the light of a street-lamp he saw her startled face, and the instinctive motion she made to detain him. He closed the door, and leaned for a moment in the window. "You're right: I ought not to have come today," he said, lowering his voice so that the coachman should not hear. She bent forward, and seemed about to speak; but he had already called out the order to drive on, and the carriage rolled away while he stood on the corner. The snow was over, and a tingling wind had sprung up, that lashed his face as he stood gazing. Suddenly he felt something stiff and cold on his lashes, and perceived that he had been crying, and that the | she answered, a smile in her voice. "Call it what you like: you look at things as they are." "Ah--I've had to. I've had to look at the Gorgon." "Well--it hasn't blinded you! You've seen that she's just an old bogey like all the others." "She doesn't blind one; but she dries up one's tears." The answer checked the pleading on Archer's lips: it seemed to come from depths of experience beyond his reach. The slow advance of the ferry-boat had ceased, and her bows bumped against the piles of the slip with a violence that made the brougham stagger, and flung Archer and Madame Olenska against each other. The young man, trembling, felt the pressure of her shoulder, and passed his arm about her. "If you're not blind, then, you must see that this can't last." "What can't?" "Our being together--and not together." "No. You ought not to have come today," she said in an altered voice; and suddenly she turned, flung her arms about him and pressed her lips to his. At the same moment the carriage began to move, and a gas-lamp at the head of the slip flashed its light into the window. She drew away, and they sat silent and motionless while the brougham struggled through the congestion of carriages about the ferry-landing. As they gained the street Archer began to speak hurriedly.<|quote|>"Don't be afraid of me: you needn't squeeze yourself back into your corner like that. A stolen kiss isn't what I want. Look: I'm not even trying to touch the sleeve of your jacket. Don't suppose that I don't understand your reasons for not wanting to let this feeling between us dwindle into an ordinary hole-and-corner love-affair. I couldn't have spoken like this yesterday, because when we've been apart, and I'm looking forward to seeing you, every thought is burnt up in a great flame. But then you come; and you're so much more than I remembered, and what I want of you is so much more than an hour or two every now and then, with wastes of thirsty waiting between, that I can sit perfectly still beside you, like this, with that other vision in my mind, just quietly trusting to it to come true."</|quote|>For a moment she made no reply; then she asked, hardly above a whisper: "What do you mean by trusting to it to come true?" "Why--you know it will, don't you?" "Your vision of you and me together?" She burst into a sudden hard laugh. "You choose your place well to put it to me!" "Do you mean because we're in my wife's brougham? Shall we get out and walk, then? I don't suppose you mind a little snow?" She laughed again, more gently. "No; I shan't get out and walk, because my business is to get to Granny's as quickly as I can. And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities." "I don't know what you mean by realities. The only reality to me is this." She met the words with a long silence, during which the carriage rolled down an obscure side-street and then turned into the searching illumination of Fifth Avenue. "Is it your idea, then, that I should live with you as your mistress--since I can't be your wife?" she asked. The crudeness of the question startled him: the word was one that women of his class fought shy of, even when their talk flitted closest about the topic. He noticed that Madame Olenska pronounced it as if it had a recognised place in her vocabulary, and he wondered if it had been used familiarly in her presence in the horrible life she had fled from. Her question pulled him up with a jerk, and he floundered. "I want--I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that--categories like that--won't exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole of life to each other; and nothing else on earth will matter." She drew a deep sigh that ended in another laugh. "Oh, my dear--where is that country? Have you ever been there?" she asked; and as he remained sullenly dumb she went on: "I know so many who've tried to find it; and, believe me, they all got out by mistake at wayside stations: at places like Boulogne, or Pisa, or Monte Carlo--and it wasn't at all different from the old world they'd left, but only rather smaller and dingier and more promiscuous." He had never heard her speak in such a tone, and he remembered the phrase she had used a little while before. "Yes, the Gorgon HAS dried your tears," he said. "Well, she opened my eyes too; it's a delusion to say that she blinds people. What she does is just the contrary--she fastens their eyelids open, so that they're never again in the blessed darkness. Isn't there a Chinese torture like that? There ought to be. Ah, believe me, it's a miserable little country!" The carriage had crossed Forty-second Street: May's sturdy brougham-horse was carrying them northward as if he had been a Kentucky trotter. Archer choked with the sense of wasted minutes and vain words. "Then what, exactly, is your plan | The Age Of Innocence |
said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver. | No speaker | that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have | Oliver made a bow. "Oh! that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here | dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. "Aha!" said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; "is that you, Bumble?" "No one else, Mr. Sowerberry," replied the beadle. "Here! I've brought the boy." Oliver made a bow. "Oh! that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?" Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. "My dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, "this is the boy from the | cough," bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence. The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. "Aha!" said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; "is that you, Bumble?" "No one else, Mr. Sowerberry," replied the beadle. "Here! I've brought the boy." Oliver made a bow. "Oh! that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?" Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. "My dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, "this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of." Oliver bowed again. "Dear me!" said the undertaker's wife, "he's very small." "Why, he _is_ rather small," replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; "he is small. There's no denying it. But he'll grow, | I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so so" "So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement. "So lonely, sir! So very lonely!" cried the child. "Everybody hates me. Oh! sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!" The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of real agony. Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky manner; and after muttering something about "that troublesome cough," bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence. The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. "Aha!" said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; "is that you, Bumble?" "No one else, Mr. Sowerberry," replied the beadle. "Here! I've brought the boy." Oliver made a bow. "Oh! that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?" Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. "My dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, "this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of." Oliver bowed again. "Dear me!" said the undertaker's wife, "he's very small." "Why, he _is_ rather small," replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; "he is small. There's no denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry he'll grow." "Ah! I dare say he will," replied the lady pettishly, "on our victuals and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep, than they're worth. However, men always think they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o' bones." With this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated "kitchen"; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted | it expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage. "Oliver!" said Mr. Bumble. "Yes, sir," replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice. "Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir." Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers. "Well!" exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. "Well! Of _all_ the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the" "No, no, sir," sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; "no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so so" "So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement. "So lonely, sir! So very lonely!" cried the child. "Everybody hates me. Oh! sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!" The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of real agony. Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky manner; and after muttering something about "that troublesome cough," bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence. The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. "Aha!" said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; "is that you, Bumble?" "No one else, Mr. Sowerberry," replied the beadle. "Here! I've brought the boy." Oliver made a bow. "Oh! that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?" Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. "My dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, "this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of." Oliver bowed again. "Dear me!" said the undertaker's wife, "he's very small." "Why, he _is_ rather small," replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; "he is small. There's no denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry he'll grow." "Ah! I dare say he will," replied the lady pettishly, "on our victuals and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep, than they're worth. However, men always think they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o' bones." With this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated "kitchen"; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair. "Here, Charlotte," said Mr. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, "give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip. He hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em. I dare say the boy isn't too dainty to eat 'em are you, boy?" Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him. I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish. "Well," said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries | the building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes; and it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening "upon liking" a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out of a boy without putting too much food into him, he shall have him for a term of years, to do what he likes with. When little Oliver was taken before "the gentlemen" that evening; and informed that he was to go, that night, as general house-lad to a coffin-maker's; and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith. Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they were rather out, in this particular instance. The simple fact was, that Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too much; and was in a fair way of being reduced, for life, to a state of brutal stupidity and sullenness by the ill usage he had received. He heard the news of his destination, in perfect silence; and, having had his luggage put into his hand which was not very difficult to carry, inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep he pulled his cap over his eyes; and once more attaching himself to Mr. Bumble's coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering. For some time, Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should: and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open, and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage. "Oliver!" said Mr. Bumble. "Yes, sir," replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice. "Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir." Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers. "Well!" exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. "Well! Of _all_ the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the" "No, no, sir," sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; "no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so so" "So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement. "So lonely, sir! So very lonely!" cried the child. "Everybody hates me. Oh! sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!" The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of real agony. Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky manner; and after muttering something about "that troublesome cough," bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence. The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. "Aha!" said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; "is that you, Bumble?" "No one else, Mr. Sowerberry," replied the beadle. "Here! I've brought the boy." Oliver made a bow. "Oh! that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?" Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. "My dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, "this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of." Oliver bowed again. "Dear me!" said the undertaker's wife, "he's very small." "Why, he _is_ rather small," replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; "he is small. There's no denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry he'll grow." "Ah! I dare say he will," replied the lady pettishly, "on our victuals and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep, than they're worth. However, men always think they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o' bones." With this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated "kitchen"; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair. "Here, Charlotte," said Mr. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, "give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip. He hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em. I dare say the boy isn't too dainty to eat 'em are you, boy?" Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him. I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish. "Well," said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite: "have you done?" There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the affirmative. "Then come with me," said Mrs. Sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way upstairs; "your bed's under the counter. You don't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else. Come; don't keep me here all night!" Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress. CHAPTER V. OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE FIRST TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER'S BUSINESS Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like that a cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror. Against the wall were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm boards cut in the same shape: looking in the dim light, like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets. Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by four black steeds, approaching in the distance. The shop was close and hot. The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust, looked like a grave. Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver. He was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and well-remembered face sank heavily into | near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage. "Oliver!" said Mr. Bumble. "Yes, sir," replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice. "Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir." Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's he covered his face with both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers. "Well!" exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. "Well! Of _all_ the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the" "No, no, sir," sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; "no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so so" "So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement. "So lonely, sir! So very lonely!" cried the child. "Everybody hates me. Oh! sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!" The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of real agony. Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky manner; and after muttering something about "that troublesome cough," bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his hand, he walked on with him in silence. The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered. "Aha!" said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; "is that you, Bumble?" "No one else, Mr. Sowerberry," replied the beadle. "Here! I've brought the boy." Oliver made a bow. "Oh! that's the boy, is it?"<|quote|>said the undertaker: raising the candle above his head, to get a better view of Oliver.</|quote|>"Mrs. Sowerberry, will you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?" Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. "My dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, "this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of." Oliver bowed again. "Dear me!" said the undertaker's wife, "he's very small." "Why, he _is_ rather small," replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he was no bigger; "he is small. There's no denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry he'll grow." "Ah! I dare say he will," replied the lady pettishly, "on our victuals and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep, than they're worth. However, men always think they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o' bones." With this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated "kitchen"; wherein sat a slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair. "Here, Charlotte," said Mr. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, "give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip. He hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em. I dare say the boy isn't too dainty to eat 'em are you, boy?" Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him. I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected. I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish. "Well," said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite: "have you done?" There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the affirmative. "Then come with me," said Mrs. Sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way upstairs; "your bed's under the counter. You don't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for | Oliver Twist |
"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear." | Miss Welland | come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've | a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; | air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness, shining through like a light under ice. "Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to be ridiculous." He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?" "Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the theatre in | "It's all very well for you, Newland; you KNOW them. But I shall feel so shy among a lot of people I've never met. And what shall I wear?" Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. She looked handsomer and more Diana-like than ever. The moist English air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness, shining through like a light under ice. "Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to be ridiculous." He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?" "Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the theatre in old ball-dresses and bare heads." "Well, perhaps they wear new ball-dresses at home; but at any rate Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle won't. They'll wear caps like my mother's--and shawls; very soft shawls." "Yes; but how will the other women be dressed?" "Not as well as you, dear," he rejoined, | thought "only right" to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies, who sent, in return, a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass. And on the dock, when Newland and his wife sailed for England, Mrs. Archer's last word had been: "You must take May to see Mrs. Carfry." Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but Mrs. Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins. "It's all very well for you, Newland; you KNOW them. But I shall feel so shy among a lot of people I've never met. And what shall I wear?" Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. She looked handsomer and more Diana-like than ever. The moist English air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness, shining through like a light under ice. "Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to be ridiculous." He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?" "Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the theatre in old ball-dresses and bare heads." "Well, perhaps they wear new ball-dresses at home; but at any rate Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle won't. They'll wear caps like my mother's--and shawls; very soft shawls." "Yes; but how will the other women be dressed?" "Not as well as you, dear," he rejoined, wondering what had suddenly developed in her Janey's morbid interest in clothes. She pushed back her chair with a sigh. "That's dear of you, Newland; but it doesn't help me much." He had an inspiration. "Why not wear your wedding-dress? That can't be wrong, can it?" "Oh, dearest! If I only had it here! But it's gone to Paris to be made over for next winter, and Worth hasn't sent it back." "Oh, well--" said Archer, getting up. "Look here--the fog's lifting. If we made a dash for the National Gallery we might manage to catch a glimpse of the | Mrs. Archer's mind, would have been more "undignified" than to force one's self on the notice of a "foreigner" to whom one had happened to render an accidental service. But Mrs. Carfry and her sister, to whom this point of view was unknown, and who would have found it utterly incomprehensible, felt themselves linked by an eternal gratitude to the "delightful Americans" who had been so kind at Botzen. With touching fidelity they seized every chance of meeting Mrs. Archer and Janey in the course of their continental travels, and displayed a supernatural acuteness in finding out when they were to pass through London on their way to or from the States. The intimacy became indissoluble, and Mrs. Archer and Janey, whenever they alighted at Brown's Hotel, found themselves awaited by two affectionate friends who, like themselves, cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace, read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits. As Mrs. Archer said, it made "another thing of London" to know Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle; and by the time that Newland became engaged the tie between the families was so firmly established that it was thought "only right" to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies, who sent, in return, a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass. And on the dock, when Newland and his wife sailed for England, Mrs. Archer's last word had been: "You must take May to see Mrs. Carfry." Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but Mrs. Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins. "It's all very well for you, Newland; you KNOW them. But I shall feel so shy among a lot of people I've never met. And what shall I wear?" Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. She looked handsomer and more Diana-like than ever. The moist English air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness, shining through like a light under ice. "Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to be ridiculous." He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?" "Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the theatre in old ball-dresses and bare heads." "Well, perhaps they wear new ball-dresses at home; but at any rate Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle won't. They'll wear caps like my mother's--and shawls; very soft shawls." "Yes; but how will the other women be dressed?" "Not as well as you, dear," he rejoined, wondering what had suddenly developed in her Janey's morbid interest in clothes. She pushed back her chair with a sigh. "That's dear of you, Newland; but it doesn't help me much." He had an inspiration. "Why not wear your wedding-dress? That can't be wrong, can it?" "Oh, dearest! If I only had it here! But it's gone to Paris to be made over for next winter, and Worth hasn't sent it back." "Oh, well--" said Archer, getting up. "Look here--the fog's lifting. If we made a dash for the National Gallery we might manage to catch a glimpse of the pictures." The Newland Archers were on their way home, after a three months' wedding-tour which May, in writing to her girl friends, vaguely summarised as "blissful." They had not gone to the Italian Lakes: on reflection, Archer had not been able to picture his wife in that particular setting. Her own inclination (after a month with the Paris dressmakers) was for mountaineering in July and swimming in August. This plan they punctually fulfilled, spending July at Interlaken and Grindelwald, and August at a little place called Etretat, on the Normandy coast, which some one had recommended as quaint and quiet. Once or twice, in the mountains, Archer had pointed southward and said: "There's Italy" "; and May, her feet in a gentian-bed, had smiled cheerfully, and replied: "It would be lovely to go there next winter, if only you didn't have to be in New York." But in reality travelling interested her even less than he had expected. She regarded it (once her clothes were ordered) as merely an enlarged opportunity for walking, riding, swimming, and trying her hand at the fascinating new game of lawn tennis; and when they finally got back to London (where they were to spend | so few people. But they opened it for Ellen, it seems, and she told me what a darling little place it was: she says it's the only house she's seen in America that she could imagine being perfectly happy in." "Well--that's what we're going to be, isn't it?" cried her husband gaily; and she answered with her boyish smile: "Ah, it's just our luck beginning--the wonderful luck we're always going to have together!" XX. "Of course we must dine with Mrs. Carfry, dearest," Archer said; and his wife looked at him with an anxious frown across the monumental Britannia ware of their lodging house breakfast-table. In all the rainy desert of autumnal London there were only two people whom the Newland Archers knew; and these two they had sedulously avoided, in conformity with the old New York tradition that it was not "dignified" to force one's self on the notice of one's acquaintances in foreign countries. Mrs. Archer and Janey, in the course of their visits to Europe, had so unflinchingly lived up to this principle, and met the friendly advances of their fellow-travellers with an air of such impenetrable reserve, that they had almost achieved the record of never having exchanged a word with a "foreigner" other than those employed in hotels and railway-stations. Their own compatriots--save those previously known or properly accredited--they treated with an even more pronounced disdain; so that, unless they ran across a Chivers, a Dagonet or a Mingott, their months abroad were spent in an unbroken tete-a-tete. But the utmost precautions are sometimes unavailing; and one night at Botzen one of the two English ladies in the room across the passage (whose names, dress and social situation were already intimately known to Janey) had knocked on the door and asked if Mrs. Archer had a bottle of liniment. The other lady--the intruder's sister, Mrs. Carfry--had been seized with a sudden attack of bronchitis; and Mrs. Archer, who never travelled without a complete family pharmacy, was fortunately able to produce the required remedy. Mrs. Carfry was very ill, and as she and her sister Miss Harle were travelling alone they were profoundly grateful to the Archer ladies, who supplied them with ingenious comforts and whose efficient maid helped to nurse the invalid back to health. When the Archers left Botzen they had no idea of ever seeing Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle again. Nothing, to Mrs. Archer's mind, would have been more "undignified" than to force one's self on the notice of a "foreigner" to whom one had happened to render an accidental service. But Mrs. Carfry and her sister, to whom this point of view was unknown, and who would have found it utterly incomprehensible, felt themselves linked by an eternal gratitude to the "delightful Americans" who had been so kind at Botzen. With touching fidelity they seized every chance of meeting Mrs. Archer and Janey in the course of their continental travels, and displayed a supernatural acuteness in finding out when they were to pass through London on their way to or from the States. The intimacy became indissoluble, and Mrs. Archer and Janey, whenever they alighted at Brown's Hotel, found themselves awaited by two affectionate friends who, like themselves, cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace, read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits. As Mrs. Archer said, it made "another thing of London" to know Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle; and by the time that Newland became engaged the tie between the families was so firmly established that it was thought "only right" to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies, who sent, in return, a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass. And on the dock, when Newland and his wife sailed for England, Mrs. Archer's last word had been: "You must take May to see Mrs. Carfry." Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but Mrs. Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins. "It's all very well for you, Newland; you KNOW them. But I shall feel so shy among a lot of people I've never met. And what shall I wear?" Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. She looked handsomer and more Diana-like than ever. The moist English air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness, shining through like a light under ice. "Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to be ridiculous." He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?" "Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the theatre in old ball-dresses and bare heads." "Well, perhaps they wear new ball-dresses at home; but at any rate Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle won't. They'll wear caps like my mother's--and shawls; very soft shawls." "Yes; but how will the other women be dressed?" "Not as well as you, dear," he rejoined, wondering what had suddenly developed in her Janey's morbid interest in clothes. She pushed back her chair with a sigh. "That's dear of you, Newland; but it doesn't help me much." He had an inspiration. "Why not wear your wedding-dress? That can't be wrong, can it?" "Oh, dearest! If I only had it here! But it's gone to Paris to be made over for next winter, and Worth hasn't sent it back." "Oh, well--" said Archer, getting up. "Look here--the fog's lifting. If we made a dash for the National Gallery we might manage to catch a glimpse of the pictures." The Newland Archers were on their way home, after a three months' wedding-tour which May, in writing to her girl friends, vaguely summarised as "blissful." They had not gone to the Italian Lakes: on reflection, Archer had not been able to picture his wife in that particular setting. Her own inclination (after a month with the Paris dressmakers) was for mountaineering in July and swimming in August. This plan they punctually fulfilled, spending July at Interlaken and Grindelwald, and August at a little place called Etretat, on the Normandy coast, which some one had recommended as quaint and quiet. Once or twice, in the mountains, Archer had pointed southward and said: "There's Italy" "; and May, her feet in a gentian-bed, had smiled cheerfully, and replied: "It would be lovely to go there next winter, if only you didn't have to be in New York." But in reality travelling interested her even less than he had expected. She regarded it (once her clothes were ordered) as merely an enlarged opportunity for walking, riding, swimming, and trying her hand at the fascinating new game of lawn tennis; and when they finally got back to London (where they were to spend a fortnight while he ordered HIS clothes) she no longer concealed the eagerness with which she looked forward to sailing. In London nothing interested her but the theatres and the shops; and she found the theatres less exciting than the Paris cafes chantants where, under the blossoming horse-chestnuts of the Champs Elysees, she had had the novel experience of looking down from the restaurant terrace on an audience of "cocottes," and having her husband interpret to her as much of the songs as he thought suitable for bridal ears. Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as all his friends treated their wives than to try to put into practice the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied. There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free; and he had long since discovered that May's only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration. Her innate dignity would always keep her from making the gift abjectly; and a day might even come (as it once had) when she would find strength to take it altogether back if she thought she were doing it for his own good. But with a conception of marriage so uncomplicated and incurious as hers such a crisis could be brought about only by something visibly outrageous in his own conduct; and the fineness of her feeling for him made that unthinkable. Whatever happened, he knew, she would always be loyal, gallant and unresentful; and that pledged him to the practice of the same virtues. All this tended to draw him back into his old habits of mind. If her simplicity had been the simplicity of pettiness he would have chafed and rebelled; but since the lines of her character, though so few, were on the same fine mould as her face, she became the tutelary divinity of all his old traditions and reverences. Such qualities were scarcely of the kind to enliven foreign travel, though they made her so easy and pleasant a companion; but he saw at once how they would fall into place in their proper setting. He had no fear of being oppressed by them, for his artistic and | to Janey) had knocked on the door and asked if Mrs. Archer had a bottle of liniment. The other lady--the intruder's sister, Mrs. Carfry--had been seized with a sudden attack of bronchitis; and Mrs. Archer, who never travelled without a complete family pharmacy, was fortunately able to produce the required remedy. Mrs. Carfry was very ill, and as she and her sister Miss Harle were travelling alone they were profoundly grateful to the Archer ladies, who supplied them with ingenious comforts and whose efficient maid helped to nurse the invalid back to health. When the Archers left Botzen they had no idea of ever seeing Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle again. Nothing, to Mrs. Archer's mind, would have been more "undignified" than to force one's self on the notice of a "foreigner" to whom one had happened to render an accidental service. But Mrs. Carfry and her sister, to whom this point of view was unknown, and who would have found it utterly incomprehensible, felt themselves linked by an eternal gratitude to the "delightful Americans" who had been so kind at Botzen. With touching fidelity they seized every chance of meeting Mrs. Archer and Janey in the course of their continental travels, and displayed a supernatural acuteness in finding out when they were to pass through London on their way to or from the States. The intimacy became indissoluble, and Mrs. Archer and Janey, whenever they alighted at Brown's Hotel, found themselves awaited by two affectionate friends who, like themselves, cultivated ferns in Wardian cases, made macrame lace, read the memoirs of the Baroness Bunsen and had views about the occupants of the leading London pulpits. As Mrs. Archer said, it made "another thing of London" to know Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle; and by the time that Newland became engaged the tie between the families was so firmly established that it was thought "only right" to send a wedding invitation to the two English ladies, who sent, in return, a pretty bouquet of pressed Alpine flowers under glass. And on the dock, when Newland and his wife sailed for England, Mrs. Archer's last word had been: "You must take May to see Mrs. Carfry." Newland and his wife had had no idea of obeying this injunction; but Mrs. Carfry, with her usual acuteness, had run them down and sent them an invitation to dine; and it was over this invitation that May Archer was wrinkling her brows across the tea and muffins. "It's all very well for you, Newland; you KNOW them. But I shall feel so shy among a lot of people I've never met. And what shall I wear?" Newland leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. She looked handsomer and more Diana-like than ever. The moist English air seemed to have deepened the bloom of her cheeks and softened the slight hardness of her virginal features; or else it was simply the inner glow of happiness, shining through like a light under ice. "Wear, dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week."<|quote|>"Yes, of course. I meant to say that I shan't know WHICH to wear."</|quote|>She pouted a little. "I've never dined out in London; and I don't want to be ridiculous." He tried to enter into her perplexity. "But don't Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?" "Newland! How can you ask such funny questions? When they go to the theatre in old ball-dresses and bare heads." "Well, perhaps they wear new ball-dresses at home; but at any rate Mrs. Carfry and Miss Harle won't. They'll wear caps like my mother's--and shawls; very soft shawls." "Yes; but how will the other women be dressed?" "Not as well as you, dear," he rejoined, wondering what had suddenly developed in her Janey's morbid interest in clothes. She pushed back her chair with a sigh. "That's dear of you, Newland; but it doesn't help me much." He had an inspiration. "Why not wear your wedding-dress? That can't be wrong, can it?" "Oh, dearest! If I only had it here! But it's gone to Paris to be made over for next winter, and Worth hasn't sent it back." "Oh, well--" said Archer, getting up. "Look here--the fog's lifting. If we made a dash for the National Gallery we might manage to catch a glimpse of the pictures." The Newland Archers were on their way home, after a three months' wedding-tour which May, in writing to her girl friends, vaguely summarised as "blissful." They had not gone to the Italian Lakes: on reflection, Archer had not been able to picture his wife in that particular setting. Her own inclination (after a month with the Paris dressmakers) was for mountaineering in July and swimming in August. This plan they punctually fulfilled, spending July at Interlaken and Grindelwald, and August at a little place called Etretat, on the Normandy coast, which some one had recommended as quaint and quiet. Once or twice, in the mountains, Archer had pointed southward and said: "There's Italy" "; and May, her feet in a gentian-bed, had smiled cheerfully, and replied: "It would be lovely to go there next winter, if only you didn't have to be in New York." But in reality travelling interested her even less than he had expected. She regarded it (once her clothes were ordered) as merely an enlarged opportunity for walking, riding, swimming, and trying her hand at the fascinating new game of lawn tennis; and when they finally got back to London (where they were to spend a fortnight while he ordered HIS clothes) she no longer concealed the eagerness with which she looked forward to sailing. In London nothing interested her but the theatres and the shops; and she found the theatres less exciting than the Paris cafes chantants where, under the blossoming horse-chestnuts of the Champs Elysees, she had had the novel experience of looking down from the restaurant terrace on an audience of "cocottes," and having her husband interpret to her as much of the songs as he thought suitable for bridal ears. Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as all his friends treated their wives than to try to put into practice the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied. There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free; and he had long since discovered that May's only use of the liberty she supposed herself to | The Age Of Innocence |
replied Blathers; | No speaker | Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been | in this case," said Mrs. Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been in it, for all that." | put-up thing?" demanded the doctor, impatiently. "We call it a put-up robbery, ladies," said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, "when the servants is in it." "Nobody suspected them, in this case," said Mrs. Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been in it, for all that." "More likely on that wery account," said Duff. "We find it was a town hand," said Blathers, continuing his report; "for the style of work is first-rate." "Wery pretty indeed it is," remarked Duff, in an undertone. "There was two | make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!" "Well, master," said Blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. "This warn't a put-up thing." "And what the devil's a put-up thing?" demanded the doctor, impatiently. "We call it a put-up robbery, ladies," said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, "when the servants is in it." "Nobody suspected them, in this case," said Mrs. Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been in it, for all that." "More likely on that wery account," said Duff. "We find it was a town hand," said Blathers, continuing his report; "for the style of work is first-rate." "Wery pretty indeed it is," remarked Duff, in an undertone. "There was two of 'em in it," continued Blathers; "and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window. That's all to be said at present. We'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please." "Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. | from misery." "Oh! what is to be done?" cried Rose. "Dear, dear! why did they send for these people?" "Why, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. "I would not have had them here, for the world." "All I know is," said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness, "that we must try and carry it off with a bold face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. The boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be talked to any more; that's one comfort. We must make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!" "Well, master," said Blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. "This warn't a put-up thing." "And what the devil's a put-up thing?" demanded the doctor, impatiently. "We call it a put-up robbery, ladies," said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, "when the servants is in it." "Nobody suspected them, in this case," said Mrs. Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been in it, for all that." "More likely on that wery account," said Duff. "We find it was a town hand," said Blathers, continuing his report; "for the style of work is first-rate." "Wery pretty indeed it is," remarked Duff, in an undertone. "There was two of 'em in it," continued Blathers; "and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window. That's all to be said at present. We'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please." "Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?" said the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred to him. "Oh! to be sure!" exclaimed Rose, eagerly. "You shall have it immediately, if you will." "Why, thank you, miss!" said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; "it's dry work, this sort of duty. Anythink that's handy, miss; don't put yourself out of the way, on our accounts." "What shall it be?" asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard. "A little drop of spirits, master, if it's all the same," replied Blathers. "It's a cold ride from London, ma'am; and I | a half-bred butler, and shoots him! As if on purpose to prevent his doing any good for himself! Don't you see all this?" "I see it, of course," replied Rose, smiling at the doctor's impetuosity; "but still I do not see anything in it, to criminate the poor child." "No," replied the doctor; "of course not! Bless the bright eyes of your sex! They never see, whether for good or bad, more than one side of any question; and that is, always, the one which first presents itself to them." Having given vent to this result of experience, the doctor put his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room with even greater rapidity than before. "The more I think of it," said the doctor, "the more I see that it will occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in possession of the boy's real story. I am certain it will not be believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan of rescuing him from misery." "Oh! what is to be done?" cried Rose. "Dear, dear! why did they send for these people?" "Why, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. "I would not have had them here, for the world." "All I know is," said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness, "that we must try and carry it off with a bold face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. The boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be talked to any more; that's one comfort. We must make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!" "Well, master," said Blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. "This warn't a put-up thing." "And what the devil's a put-up thing?" demanded the doctor, impatiently. "We call it a put-up robbery, ladies," said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, "when the servants is in it." "Nobody suspected them, in this case," said Mrs. Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been in it, for all that." "More likely on that wery account," said Duff. "We find it was a town hand," said Blathers, continuing his report; "for the style of work is first-rate." "Wery pretty indeed it is," remarked Duff, in an undertone. "There was two of 'em in it," continued Blathers; "and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window. That's all to be said at present. We'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please." "Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?" said the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred to him. "Oh! to be sure!" exclaimed Rose, eagerly. "You shall have it immediately, if you will." "Why, thank you, miss!" said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; "it's dry work, this sort of duty. Anythink that's handy, miss; don't put yourself out of the way, on our accounts." "What shall it be?" asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard. "A little drop of spirits, master, if it's all the same," replied Blathers. "It's a cold ride from London, ma'am; and I always find that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings." This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie, who received it very graciously. While it was being conveyed to her, the doctor slipped out of the room. "Ah!" said Mr. Blathers: not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand: and placing it in front of his chest; "I have seen a good many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies." "That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers," said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague's memory. "That was something in this way, warn't it?" rejoined Mr. Blathers; "that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was." "You always gave that to him" replied Duff. "It was the Family Pet, I tell you. Conkey hadn't any more to do with it than I had." "Get out!" retorted Mr. Blathers; "I know better. Do you mind that time when Conkey was robbed of his money, though? What a start that was! Better than any novel-book _I_ ever see!" "What was that?" inquired Rose: anxious to encourage any symptoms of good-humour in the unwelcome visitors. "It was a robbery, | and in not more than a dozen the last. This consummation being arrived at, Blathers and Duff cleared the room, and held a long council together, compared with which, for secrecy and solemnity, a consultation of great doctors on the knottiest point in medicine, would be mere child's play. Meanwhile, the doctor walked up and down the next room in a very uneasy state; and Mrs. Maylie and Rose looked on, with anxious faces. "Upon my word," he said, making a halt, after a great number of very rapid turns, "I hardly know what to do." "Surely," said Rose, "the poor child's story, faithfully repeated to these men, will be sufficient to exonerate him." "I doubt it, my dear young lady," said the doctor, shaking his head. "I don't think it would exonerate him, either with them, or with legal functionaries of a higher grade. What is he, after all, they would say? A runaway. Judged by mere worldly considerations and probabilities, his story is a very doubtful one." "You believe it, surely?" interrupted Rose. "_I_ believe it, strange as it is; and perhaps I may be an old fool for doing so," rejoined the doctor; "but I don't think it is exactly the tale for a practical police-officer, nevertheless." "Why not?" demanded Rose. "Because, my pretty cross-examiner," replied the doctor: "because, viewed with their eyes, there are many ugly points about it; he can only prove the parts that look ill, and none of those that look well. Confound the fellows, they _will_ have the why and the wherefore, and will take nothing for granted. On his own showing, you see, he has been the companion of thieves for some time past; he has been carried to a police-officer, on a charge of picking a gentleman's pocket; he has been taken away, forcibly, from that gentleman's house, to a place which he cannot describe or point out, and of the situation of which he has not the remotest idea. He is brought down to Chertsey, by men who seem to have taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will or no; and is put through a window to rob a house; and then, just at the very moment when he is going to alarm the inmates, and so do the very thing that would set him all to rights, there rushes into the way, a blundering dog of a half-bred butler, and shoots him! As if on purpose to prevent his doing any good for himself! Don't you see all this?" "I see it, of course," replied Rose, smiling at the doctor's impetuosity; "but still I do not see anything in it, to criminate the poor child." "No," replied the doctor; "of course not! Bless the bright eyes of your sex! They never see, whether for good or bad, more than one side of any question; and that is, always, the one which first presents itself to them." Having given vent to this result of experience, the doctor put his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room with even greater rapidity than before. "The more I think of it," said the doctor, "the more I see that it will occasion endless trouble and difficulty if we put these men in possession of the boy's real story. I am certain it will not be believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan of rescuing him from misery." "Oh! what is to be done?" cried Rose. "Dear, dear! why did they send for these people?" "Why, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. "I would not have had them here, for the world." "All I know is," said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness, "that we must try and carry it off with a bold face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. The boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be talked to any more; that's one comfort. We must make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!" "Well, master," said Blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. "This warn't a put-up thing." "And what the devil's a put-up thing?" demanded the doctor, impatiently. "We call it a put-up robbery, ladies," said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, "when the servants is in it." "Nobody suspected them, in this case," said Mrs. Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been in it, for all that." "More likely on that wery account," said Duff. "We find it was a town hand," said Blathers, continuing his report; "for the style of work is first-rate." "Wery pretty indeed it is," remarked Duff, in an undertone. "There was two of 'em in it," continued Blathers; "and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window. That's all to be said at present. We'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please." "Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?" said the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred to him. "Oh! to be sure!" exclaimed Rose, eagerly. "You shall have it immediately, if you will." "Why, thank you, miss!" said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; "it's dry work, this sort of duty. Anythink that's handy, miss; don't put yourself out of the way, on our accounts." "What shall it be?" asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard. "A little drop of spirits, master, if it's all the same," replied Blathers. "It's a cold ride from London, ma'am; and I always find that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings." This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie, who received it very graciously. While it was being conveyed to her, the doctor slipped out of the room. "Ah!" said Mr. Blathers: not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand: and placing it in front of his chest; "I have seen a good many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies." "That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers," said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague's memory. "That was something in this way, warn't it?" rejoined Mr. Blathers; "that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was." "You always gave that to him" replied Duff. "It was the Family Pet, I tell you. Conkey hadn't any more to do with it than I had." "Get out!" retorted Mr. Blathers; "I know better. Do you mind that time when Conkey was robbed of his money, though? What a start that was! Better than any novel-book _I_ ever see!" "What was that?" inquired Rose: anxious to encourage any symptoms of good-humour in the unwelcome visitors. "It was a robbery, miss, that hardly anybody would have been down upon," said Blathers. "This here Conkey Chickweed" "Conkey means Nosey, ma'am," interposed Duff. "Of course the lady knows that, don't she?" demanded Mr. Blathers. "Always interrupting, you are, partner! This here Conkey Chickweed, miss, kept a public-house over Battlebridge way, and he had a cellar, where a good many young lords went to see cock-fighting, and badger-drawing, and that; and a wery intellectual manner the sports was conducted in, for I've seen 'em off'en. He warn't one of the family, at that time; and one night he was robbed of three hundred and twenty-seven guineas in a canvas bag, that was stole out of his bedroom in the dead of night, by a tall man with a black patch over his eye, who had concealed himself under the bed, and after committing the robbery, jumped slap out of window: which was only a story high. He was wery quick about it. But Conkey was quick, too; for he fired a blunderbuss arter him, and roused the neighbourhood. They set up a hue-and-cry, directly, and when they came to look about 'em, found that Conkey had hit the robber; for there was traces of blood, all the way to some palings a good distance off; and there they lost 'em. However, he had made off with the blunt; and, consequently, the name of Mr. Chickweed, licensed witler, appeared in the Gazette among the other bankrupts; and all manner of benefits and subscriptions, and I don't know what all, was got up for the poor man, who was in a wery low state of mind about his loss, and went up and down the streets, for three or four days, a pulling his hair off in such a desperate manner that many people was afraid he might be going to make away with himself. One day he came up to the office, all in a hurry, and had a private interview with the magistrate, who, after a deal of talk, rings the bell, and orders Jem Spyers in (Jem was a active officer), and tells him to go and assist Mr. Chickweed in apprehending the man as robbed his house." I see him, Spyers,' "said Chickweed," pass my house yesterday morning,' Why didn't you up, and collar him!' "says Spyers." I was so struck all of a heap, that you might have fractured my | will not be believed; and even if they can do nothing to him in the end, still the dragging it forward, and giving publicity to all the doubts that will be cast upon it, must interfere, materially, with your benevolent plan of rescuing him from misery." "Oh! what is to be done?" cried Rose. "Dear, dear! why did they send for these people?" "Why, indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. "I would not have had them here, for the world." "All I know is," said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness, "that we must try and carry it off with a bold face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. The boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be talked to any more; that's one comfort. We must make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!" "Well, master," said Blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. "This warn't a put-up thing." "And what the devil's a put-up thing?" demanded the doctor, impatiently. "We call it a put-up robbery, ladies," said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor's, "when the servants is in it." "Nobody suspected them, in this case," said Mrs. Maylie. "Wery likely not, ma'am,"<|quote|>replied Blathers;</|quote|>"but they might have been in it, for all that." "More likely on that wery account," said Duff. "We find it was a town hand," said Blathers, continuing his report; "for the style of work is first-rate." "Wery pretty indeed it is," remarked Duff, in an undertone. "There was two of 'em in it," continued Blathers; "and they had a boy with 'em; that's plain from the size of the window. That's all to be said at present. We'll see this lad that you've got upstairs at once, if you please." "Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?" said the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred to him. "Oh! to be sure!" exclaimed Rose, eagerly. "You shall have it immediately, if you will." "Why, thank you, miss!" said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; "it's dry work, this sort of duty. Anythink that's handy, miss; don't put yourself out of the way, on our accounts." "What shall it be?" asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard. "A little drop of spirits, master, if it's all the same," replied Blathers. "It's a cold ride from London, ma'am; and I always find that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings." This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie, who received it very graciously. While it was being conveyed to her, the doctor slipped out of the room. "Ah!" said Mr. Blathers: not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand: and placing it in front of his chest; "I have seen a good many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies." "That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers," said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague's memory. "That was something in this way, warn't it?" rejoined Mr. Blathers; "that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was." "You always gave that to him" replied Duff. "It was the Family Pet, I tell you. Conkey hadn't any more to do with it than I had." "Get out!" | Oliver Twist |
"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs." | Lord Henry | Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried | will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried the old lady. "If he | Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. "I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion." "You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried the old lady. "If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to | are very wicked," cried the old lady, shaking her head. Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one s back that are absolutely and entirely true." "Isn t he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. "I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion." "You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried the old lady. "If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true." "Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set | le_." "_Trop d audace_, I tell her," said Dorian. "Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I don t know him." "The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes," said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. "Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked." "But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. "It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms." "Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady, shaking her head. Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one s back that are absolutely and entirely true." "Isn t he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. "I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion." "You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried the old lady. "If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true." "Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men." "_Fin de si cle_," murmured Lord Henry. "_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess. "I wish it were _fin du globe_," said Dorian with a sigh. "Life is a great disappointment." "Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don t tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been; | short frocks at all, Lord Henry. But I remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _d collet e_ she was then." "She is still _d collet e_," he answered, taking an olive in his long fingers; "and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an _ dition de luxe_ of a bad French novel. She is really wonderful, and full of surprises. Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief." "How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian. "It is a most romantic explanation," laughed the hostess. "But her third husband, Lord Henry! You don t mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?" "Certainly, Lady Narborough." "I don t believe a word of it." "Well, ask Mr. Gray. He is one of her most intimate friends." "Is it true, Mr. Gray?" "She assures me so, Lady Narborough," said Dorian. "I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didn t, because none of them had had any hearts at all." "Four husbands! Upon my word that is _trop de z le_." "_Trop d audace_, I tell her," said Dorian. "Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I don t know him." "The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes," said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. "Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked." "But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. "It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms." "Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady, shaking her head. Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one s back that are absolutely and entirely true." "Isn t he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. "I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion." "You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried the old lady. "If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true." "Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men." "_Fin de si cle_," murmured Lord Henry. "_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess. "I wish it were _fin du globe_," said Dorian with a sigh. "Life is a great disappointment." "Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don t tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good you look so good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don t you think that Mr. Gray should get married?" "I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry with a bow. "Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall go through Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the eligible young ladies." "With their ages, Lady Narborough?" asked Dorian. "Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done in a hurry. I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable alliance, and I want you both to be happy." "What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord Henry. "A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her." "Ah! what a cynic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair and nodding to Lady Ruxton. "You must come and dine with me soon again. You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir Andrew prescribes for me. You must tell me what people you would like to meet, though. I want it | are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an overdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always trying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to her great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against her; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and Venetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess s daughter, a dowdy dull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once seen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked, white-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of ideas. He was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the mauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed: "How horrid of Henry Wotton to be so late! I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised faithfully not to disappoint me." It was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door opened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some insincere apology, he ceased to feel bored. But at dinner he could not eat anything. Plate after plate went away untasted. Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called "an insult to poor Adolphe, who invented the _menu_ specially for you," and now and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence and abstracted manner. From time to time the butler filled his glass with champagne. He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase. "Dorian," said Lord Henry at last, as the _chaud-froid_ was being handed round, "what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of sorts." "I believe he is in love," cried Lady Narborough, "and that he is afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous. He is quite right. I certainly should." "Dear Lady Narborough," murmured Dorian, smiling, "I have not been in love for a whole week not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town." "How you men can fall in love with that woman!" exclaimed the old lady. "I really cannot understand it." "It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry. "She is the one link between us and your short frocks." "She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry. But I remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _d collet e_ she was then." "She is still _d collet e_," he answered, taking an olive in his long fingers; "and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an _ dition de luxe_ of a bad French novel. She is really wonderful, and full of surprises. Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief." "How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian. "It is a most romantic explanation," laughed the hostess. "But her third husband, Lord Henry! You don t mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?" "Certainly, Lady Narborough." "I don t believe a word of it." "Well, ask Mr. Gray. He is one of her most intimate friends." "Is it true, Mr. Gray?" "She assures me so, Lady Narborough," said Dorian. "I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didn t, because none of them had had any hearts at all." "Four husbands! Upon my word that is _trop de z le_." "_Trop d audace_, I tell her," said Dorian. "Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I don t know him." "The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes," said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. "Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked." "But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. "It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms." "Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady, shaking her head. Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one s back that are absolutely and entirely true." "Isn t he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. "I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion." "You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried the old lady. "If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true." "Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men." "_Fin de si cle_," murmured Lord Henry. "_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess. "I wish it were _fin du globe_," said Dorian with a sigh. "Life is a great disappointment." "Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don t tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good you look so good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don t you think that Mr. Gray should get married?" "I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry with a bow. "Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall go through Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the eligible young ladies." "With their ages, Lady Narborough?" asked Dorian. "Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done in a hurry. I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable alliance, and I want you both to be happy." "What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord Henry. "A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her." "Ah! what a cynic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair and nodding to Lady Ruxton. "You must come and dine with me soon again. You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir Andrew prescribes for me. You must tell me what people you would like to meet, though. I want it to be a delightful gathering." "I like men who have a future and women who have a past," he answered. "Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?" "I fear so," she said, laughing, as she stood up. "A thousand pardons, my dear Lady Ruxton," she added, "I didn t see you hadn t finished your cigarette." "Never mind, Lady Narborough. I smoke a great deal too much. I am going to limit myself, for the future." "Pray don t, Lady Ruxton," said Lord Henry. "Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast." Lady Ruxton glanced at him curiously. "You must come and explain that to me some afternoon, Lord Henry. It sounds a fascinating theory," she murmured, as she swept out of the room. "Now, mind you don t stay too long over your politics and scandal," cried Lady Narborough from the door. "If you do, we are sure to squabble upstairs." The men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the table and came up to the top. Dorian Gray changed his seat and went and sat by Lord Henry. Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about the situation in the House of Commons. He guffawed at his adversaries. The word _doctrinaire_ word full of terror to the British mind reappeared from time to time between his explosions. An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory. He hoisted the Union Jack on the pinnacles of thought. The inherited stupidity of the race sound English common sense he jovially termed it was shown to be the proper bulwark for society. A smile curved Lord Henry s lips, and he turned round and looked at Dorian. "Are you better, my dear fellow?" he asked. "You seemed rather out of sorts at dinner." "I am quite well, Harry. I am tired. That is all." "You were charming last night. The little duchess is quite devoted to you. She tells me she is going down to Selby." "She has promised to come on the twentieth." "Is Monmouth to be there, too?" "Oh, yes, Harry." "He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her. She is very clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. It is the feet of clay that | none of them had had any hearts at all." "Four husbands! Upon my word that is _trop de z le_." "_Trop d audace_, I tell her," said Dorian. "Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I don t know him." "The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes," said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. "Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked." "But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. "It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms." "Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady, shaking her head. Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one s back that are absolutely and entirely true." "Isn t he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. "I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion." "You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.<|quote|>"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs."</|quote|>"Narborough wasn t perfect," cried the old lady. "If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true." "Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men." "_Fin de si cle_," murmured Lord Henry. "_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess. "I wish it were _fin du globe_," said Dorian with a sigh. "Life is a great disappointment." "Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don t tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good you look so good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don t you think that Mr. Gray should get married?" "I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry with a bow. "Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall go through Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the eligible young ladies." "With their ages, Lady Narborough?" asked Dorian. "Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done in a hurry. I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable alliance, and I want you both to be happy." "What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord Henry. "A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her." "Ah! what a cynic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair and | The Picture Of Dorian Gray |
"No one blames you, my dear Callendar," | Mr. Turton | is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. | to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. "We are all to blame | give in under pressure. That is what I did, my sons, that is what I did." Fielding took his pipe from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully. Thinking him afraid, the other went on: "I understood an Englishman was to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. "We are all to blame in the sense that we ought to have seen the expedition was insufficiently guaranteed, and stopped it. I knew about it myself; we lent our car this morning to take the ladies to the station. We are all implicated in | nothing for him in return; they felt so craven sitting on softness and attending the course of the law. "I wish to God I hadn't given my jewel of an assistant leave. I'ld cut my tongue out first. To feel I'm responsible, that's what hits me. To refuse, and then give in under pressure. That is what I did, my sons, that is what I did." Fielding took his pipe from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully. Thinking him afraid, the other went on: "I understood an Englishman was to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. "We are all to blame in the sense that we ought to have seen the expedition was insufficiently guaranteed, and stopped it. I knew about it myself; we lent our car this morning to take the ladies to the station. We are all implicated in that sense, but not an atom of blame attaches to you personally." "I don't feel that. I wish I could. Responsibility is a very awful thing, and I've no use for the man who shirks it." His eyes were directed on Fielding. Those who knew that Fielding had undertaken to | it." "Take me some time to do that." "How's the old lady?" "Temperature." "My wife heard she was sinking." "So she may be. I guarantee nothing. I really can't be plagued with questions, Lesley." "Sorry, old man." "Heaslop's just behind me." At the name of Heaslop a fine and beautiful expression was renewed on every face. Miss Quested was only a victim, but young Heaslop was a martyr; he was the recipient of all the evil intended against them by the country they had tried to serve; he was bearing the sahib's cross. And they fretted because they could do nothing for him in return; they felt so craven sitting on softness and attending the course of the law. "I wish to God I hadn't given my jewel of an assistant leave. I'ld cut my tongue out first. To feel I'm responsible, that's what hits me. To refuse, and then give in under pressure. That is what I did, my sons, that is what I did." Fielding took his pipe from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully. Thinking him afraid, the other went on: "I understood an Englishman was to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. "We are all to blame in the sense that we ought to have seen the expedition was insufficiently guaranteed, and stopped it. I knew about it myself; we lent our car this morning to take the ladies to the station. We are all implicated in that sense, but not an atom of blame attaches to you personally." "I don't feel that. I wish I could. Responsibility is a very awful thing, and I've no use for the man who shirks it." His eyes were directed on Fielding. Those who knew that Fielding had undertaken to accompany and missed the early train were sorry for him; it was what is to be expected when a man mixes himself up with natives; always ends in some indignity. The Collector, who knew more, kept silent, for the official in him still hoped that Fielding would toe the line. The conversation turned to women and children again, and under its cover Major Callendar got hold of the subaltern, and set him on to bait the schoolmaster. Pretending to be more drunk than he really was, he began to make semi-offensive remarks. "Heard about Miss Quested's servant?" reinforced the Major. | angel." They murmured, "Right you are, Burra Sahib. . . . Angels. . . . Exactly. . . ." From the subaltern: "Exactly what I said. The native's all right if you get him alone. Lesley! Lesley! You remember the one I had a knock with on your Maidan last month. Well, he was all right. Any native who plays polo is all right. What you've got to stamp on is these educated classes, and, mind, I do know what I'm talking about this time." The smoking-room door opened, and let in a feminine buzz. Mrs. Turton called out, "She's better," and from both sections of the community a sigh of joy and relief rose. The Civil Surgeon, who had brought the good news, came in. His cumbrous, pasty face looked ill-tempered. He surveyed the company, saw Fielding crouched below him on an ottoman, and said, "H'm!" Everyone began pressing him for details. "No one's out of danger in this country as long as they have a temperature," was his answer. He appeared to resent his patient's recovery, and no one who knew the old Major and his ways was surprised at this. "Squat down, Callendar; tell us all about it." "Take me some time to do that." "How's the old lady?" "Temperature." "My wife heard she was sinking." "So she may be. I guarantee nothing. I really can't be plagued with questions, Lesley." "Sorry, old man." "Heaslop's just behind me." At the name of Heaslop a fine and beautiful expression was renewed on every face. Miss Quested was only a victim, but young Heaslop was a martyr; he was the recipient of all the evil intended against them by the country they had tried to serve; he was bearing the sahib's cross. And they fretted because they could do nothing for him in return; they felt so craven sitting on softness and attending the course of the law. "I wish to God I hadn't given my jewel of an assistant leave. I'ld cut my tongue out first. To feel I'm responsible, that's what hits me. To refuse, and then give in under pressure. That is what I did, my sons, that is what I did." Fielding took his pipe from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully. Thinking him afraid, the other went on: "I understood an Englishman was to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. "We are all to blame in the sense that we ought to have seen the expedition was insufficiently guaranteed, and stopped it. I knew about it myself; we lent our car this morning to take the ladies to the station. We are all implicated in that sense, but not an atom of blame attaches to you personally." "I don't feel that. I wish I could. Responsibility is a very awful thing, and I've no use for the man who shirks it." His eyes were directed on Fielding. Those who knew that Fielding had undertaken to accompany and missed the early train were sorry for him; it was what is to be expected when a man mixes himself up with natives; always ends in some indignity. The Collector, who knew more, kept silent, for the official in him still hoped that Fielding would toe the line. The conversation turned to women and children again, and under its cover Major Callendar got hold of the subaltern, and set him on to bait the schoolmaster. Pretending to be more drunk than he really was, he began to make semi-offensive remarks. "Heard about Miss Quested's servant?" reinforced the Major. "No, what about him?" "Heaslop warned Miss Quested's servant last night never to lose sight of her. Prisoner got hold of this and managed to leave him behind. Bribed him. Heaslop has just found out the whole story, with names and sums a well-known pimp to those people gave the money, Mohammed Latif by name. So much for the servant. What about the Englishman our friend here? How did they get rid of him? Money again." Fielding rose to his feet, supported by murmurs and exclamations, for no one yet suspected his integrity. "Oh, I'm being misunderstood, apologies," said the Major offensively. "I didn't mean they bribed Mr. Fielding." "Then what do you mean?" "They paid the other Indian to make you late Godbole. He was saying his prayers. I know those prayers!" "That's ridiculous . . ." He sat down again, trembling with rage; person after person was being dragged into the mud. Having shot this bolt, the Major prepared the next. "Heaslop also found out something from his mother. Aziz paid a herd of natives to suffocate her in a cave. That was the end of her, or would have been only she got out. Nicely planned, wasn't | naturally. They had started speaking of "women and children" that phrase that exempts the male from sanity when it has been repeated a few times. Each felt that all he loved best in the world was at stake, demanded revenge, and was filled with a not unpleasing glow, in which the chilly and half-known features of Miss Quested vanished, and were replaced by all that is sweetest and warmest in the private life. "But it's the women and children," they repeated, and the Collector knew he ought to stop them intoxicating themselves, but he hadn't the heart. "They ought to be compelled to give hostages," etc. Many of the said women and children were leaving for the Hill Station in a few days, and the suggestion was made that they should be packed off at once in a special train. "_And_ a jolly suggestion," the subaltern cried. "The army's got to come in sooner or later. (A special train was in his mind inseparable from troops.) This would never have happened if Barabas Hill was under military control. Station a bunch of Gurkhas at the entrance of the cave was all that was wanted." "Mrs. Blakiston was saying if only there were a few Tommies," remarked someone. "English no good," he cried, getting his loyalties mixed. "Native troops for this country. Give me the sporting type of native, give me Gurkhas, give me Rajputs, give me Jats, give me the Punjabi, give me Sikhs, give me Marathas, Bhils, Afridis and Pathans, and really if it comes to that, I don't mind if you give me the scums of the bazaars. Properly led, mind. I'd lead them anywhere" The Collector nodded at him pleasantly, and said to his own people: "Don't start carrying arms about. I want everything to go on precisely as usual, until there's cause for the contrary. Get the womenfolk off to the hills, but do it quietly, and for Heaven's sake no more talk of special trains. Never mind what you think or feel. Possibly I have feelings too. One isolated Indian has attempted is charged with an attempted crime." He flipped his forehead hard with his finger-nail, and they all realized that he felt as deeply as they did, and they loved him, and determined not to increase his difficulties. "Act upon that fact until there are more facts," he concluded. "Assume every Indian is an angel." They murmured, "Right you are, Burra Sahib. . . . Angels. . . . Exactly. . . ." From the subaltern: "Exactly what I said. The native's all right if you get him alone. Lesley! Lesley! You remember the one I had a knock with on your Maidan last month. Well, he was all right. Any native who plays polo is all right. What you've got to stamp on is these educated classes, and, mind, I do know what I'm talking about this time." The smoking-room door opened, and let in a feminine buzz. Mrs. Turton called out, "She's better," and from both sections of the community a sigh of joy and relief rose. The Civil Surgeon, who had brought the good news, came in. His cumbrous, pasty face looked ill-tempered. He surveyed the company, saw Fielding crouched below him on an ottoman, and said, "H'm!" Everyone began pressing him for details. "No one's out of danger in this country as long as they have a temperature," was his answer. He appeared to resent his patient's recovery, and no one who knew the old Major and his ways was surprised at this. "Squat down, Callendar; tell us all about it." "Take me some time to do that." "How's the old lady?" "Temperature." "My wife heard she was sinking." "So she may be. I guarantee nothing. I really can't be plagued with questions, Lesley." "Sorry, old man." "Heaslop's just behind me." At the name of Heaslop a fine and beautiful expression was renewed on every face. Miss Quested was only a victim, but young Heaslop was a martyr; he was the recipient of all the evil intended against them by the country they had tried to serve; he was bearing the sahib's cross. And they fretted because they could do nothing for him in return; they felt so craven sitting on softness and attending the course of the law. "I wish to God I hadn't given my jewel of an assistant leave. I'ld cut my tongue out first. To feel I'm responsible, that's what hits me. To refuse, and then give in under pressure. That is what I did, my sons, that is what I did." Fielding took his pipe from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully. Thinking him afraid, the other went on: "I understood an Englishman was to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. "We are all to blame in the sense that we ought to have seen the expedition was insufficiently guaranteed, and stopped it. I knew about it myself; we lent our car this morning to take the ladies to the station. We are all implicated in that sense, but not an atom of blame attaches to you personally." "I don't feel that. I wish I could. Responsibility is a very awful thing, and I've no use for the man who shirks it." His eyes were directed on Fielding. Those who knew that Fielding had undertaken to accompany and missed the early train were sorry for him; it was what is to be expected when a man mixes himself up with natives; always ends in some indignity. The Collector, who knew more, kept silent, for the official in him still hoped that Fielding would toe the line. The conversation turned to women and children again, and under its cover Major Callendar got hold of the subaltern, and set him on to bait the schoolmaster. Pretending to be more drunk than he really was, he began to make semi-offensive remarks. "Heard about Miss Quested's servant?" reinforced the Major. "No, what about him?" "Heaslop warned Miss Quested's servant last night never to lose sight of her. Prisoner got hold of this and managed to leave him behind. Bribed him. Heaslop has just found out the whole story, with names and sums a well-known pimp to those people gave the money, Mohammed Latif by name. So much for the servant. What about the Englishman our friend here? How did they get rid of him? Money again." Fielding rose to his feet, supported by murmurs and exclamations, for no one yet suspected his integrity. "Oh, I'm being misunderstood, apologies," said the Major offensively. "I didn't mean they bribed Mr. Fielding." "Then what do you mean?" "They paid the other Indian to make you late Godbole. He was saying his prayers. I know those prayers!" "That's ridiculous . . ." He sat down again, trembling with rage; person after person was being dragged into the mud. Having shot this bolt, the Major prepared the next. "Heaslop also found out something from his mother. Aziz paid a herd of natives to suffocate her in a cave. That was the end of her, or would have been only she got out. Nicely planned, wasn't it? Neat. Then he could go on with the girl. He and she and a guide, provided by the same Mohammed Latif. Guide now can't be found. Pretty." His voice broke into a roar. "It's not the time for sitting down. It's the time for action. Call in the troops and clear the bazaars." The Major's outbursts were always discounted, but he made everyone uneasy on this occasion. The crime was even worse than they had supposed the unspeakable limit of cynicism, untouched since 1857. Fielding forgot his anger on poor old Godbole's behalf, and became thoughtful; the evil was propagating in every direction, it seemed to have an existence of its own, apart from anything that was done or said by individuals, and he understood better why both Aziz and Hamidullah had been inclined to lie down and die. His adversary saw that he was in trouble, and now ventured to say, "I suppose nothing that's said inside the club will go outside the club?" winking the while at Lesley. "Why should it?" responded Lesley. "Oh, nothing. I only heard a rumour that a certain member here present has been seeing the prisoner this afternoon. You can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, at least not in this country." "Does anyone here present want to?" Fielding was determined not to be drawn again. He had something to say, but it should be at his own moment. The attack failed to mature, because the Collector did not support it. Attention shifted from him for a time. Then the buzz of women broke out again. The door had been opened by Ronny. The young man looked exhausted and tragic, also gentler than usual. He always showed deference to his superiors, but now it came straight from his heart. He seemed to appeal for their protection in the insult that had befallen him, and they, in instinctive homage, rose to their feet. But every human act in the East is tainted with officialism, and while honouring him they condemned Aziz and India. Fielding realized this, and he remained seated. It was an ungracious, a caddish thing to do, perhaps an unsound thing to do, but he felt he had been passive long enough, and that he might be drawn into the wrong current if he did not make a stand. Ronny, who had not seen him, said in husky | appeared to resent his patient's recovery, and no one who knew the old Major and his ways was surprised at this. "Squat down, Callendar; tell us all about it." "Take me some time to do that." "How's the old lady?" "Temperature." "My wife heard she was sinking." "So she may be. I guarantee nothing. I really can't be plagued with questions, Lesley." "Sorry, old man." "Heaslop's just behind me." At the name of Heaslop a fine and beautiful expression was renewed on every face. Miss Quested was only a victim, but young Heaslop was a martyr; he was the recipient of all the evil intended against them by the country they had tried to serve; he was bearing the sahib's cross. And they fretted because they could do nothing for him in return; they felt so craven sitting on softness and attending the course of the law. "I wish to God I hadn't given my jewel of an assistant leave. I'ld cut my tongue out first. To feel I'm responsible, that's what hits me. To refuse, and then give in under pressure. That is what I did, my sons, that is what I did." Fielding took his pipe from his mouth and looked at it thoughtfully. Thinking him afraid, the other went on: "I understood an Englishman was to accompany the expedition. That is why I gave in."<|quote|>"No one blames you, my dear Callendar,"</|quote|>said the Collector, looking down. "We are all to blame in the sense that we ought to have seen the expedition was insufficiently guaranteed, and stopped it. I knew about it myself; we lent our car this morning to take the ladies to the station. We are all implicated in that sense, but not an atom of blame attaches to you personally." "I don't feel that. I wish I could. Responsibility is a very awful thing, and I've no use for the man who shirks it." His eyes were directed on Fielding. Those who knew that Fielding had undertaken to accompany and missed the early train were sorry for him; it was what is to be expected when a man mixes himself up with natives; always ends in some indignity. The Collector, who knew more, kept silent, for the official in him still hoped that Fielding would toe the line. The conversation turned to women and children again, and under its cover Major Callendar got hold of the subaltern, and set him on to bait the schoolmaster. Pretending to be more drunk than he really was, he began to make semi-offensive remarks. "Heard about Miss Quested's servant?" reinforced the Major. "No, what about him?" "Heaslop warned Miss Quested's servant last night never to lose sight of her. Prisoner got hold of this and managed to leave him behind. Bribed him. Heaslop has just found out the whole story, with names and sums a well-known pimp to those people gave the money, Mohammed Latif by name. So much for the servant. What about the Englishman our friend here? How did they get rid of him? Money again." Fielding rose to his feet, supported by murmurs and exclamations, for no one yet suspected his integrity. "Oh, I'm being misunderstood, apologies," said the Major offensively. "I didn't mean they bribed Mr. Fielding." "Then what do you mean?" "They paid the other Indian to make you late Godbole. He was saying his prayers. I know those prayers!" "That's ridiculous . . ." He sat down again, trembling with rage; person after person was being dragged into the mud. Having shot this bolt, the Major prepared the next. "Heaslop also found out something from his mother. Aziz paid a herd of natives to suffocate her in a cave. That was the end of her, or would have been only she got out. Nicely planned, wasn't it? Neat. Then he could go on with the girl. He and she and a guide, provided by the same Mohammed Latif. Guide now can't be found. Pretty." His voice broke into a roar. "It's not the time for sitting down. It's the time for action. Call in the troops and clear the bazaars." The Major's outbursts were always discounted, but he made everyone uneasy on this occasion. The crime was even worse than they had supposed the unspeakable limit of cynicism, untouched since 1857. Fielding forgot his anger on poor old Godbole's behalf, and became thoughtful; the evil was propagating in every direction, it seemed to have an existence of its own, apart from anything that was done or said by individuals, and he understood better why both Aziz and Hamidullah had been inclined to lie down and die. His adversary saw that he was in trouble, and now ventured to | A Passage To India |
He hesitated. | No speaker | see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in | most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in touch with him all right." | office Hamidullah's. The opposite army was gathering. "I must put this report through now, Fielding." "I wish you wouldn't." "How can I not?" "I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well as most disastrous. We are heading for a most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in touch with him all right." "Well, when he's done with them." "I wouldn't keep you waiting; good heavens, you take precedence of any Indian visitor, of course. I meant what's the good. Why mix yourself up with pitch?" "I say he's innocent" "Innocence or guilt, | to you." McBryde raised his eyebrows, murmuring: "A bit too finespun. Anyhow, Callendar won't hear of you seeing her. I'm sorry to say he gave a bad account just now. He says that she is by no means out of danger." They were silent. Another card was brought into the office Hamidullah's. The opposite army was gathering. "I must put this report through now, Fielding." "I wish you wouldn't." "How can I not?" "I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well as most disastrous. We are heading for a most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in touch with him all right." "Well, when he's done with them." "I wouldn't keep you waiting; good heavens, you take precedence of any Indian visitor, of course. I meant what's the good. Why mix yourself up with pitch?" "I say he's innocent" "Innocence or guilt, why mix yourself up? What's the good?" "Oh, good, good," he cried, feeling that every earth was being stopped. "One's got to breathe occasionally, at least I have. I mayn't see her, and now I mayn't see him. I promised him to come up here with him to you, but | sure to refuse, it's all he exists for," said the other desperately. The expected answer came back: the Major would not hear of the patient being troubled. "I only wanted to ask her whether she is certain, dead certain, that it was Aziz who followed her into the cave." "Possibly my wife might ask her that much." "But _I_ wanted to ask her. I want someone who believes in him to ask her." "What difference does that make?" "She is among people who disbelieve in Indians." "Well, she tells her own story, doesn't she?" "I know, but she tells it to you." McBryde raised his eyebrows, murmuring: "A bit too finespun. Anyhow, Callendar won't hear of you seeing her. I'm sorry to say he gave a bad account just now. He says that she is by no means out of danger." They were silent. Another card was brought into the office Hamidullah's. The opposite army was gathering. "I must put this report through now, Fielding." "I wish you wouldn't." "How can I not?" "I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well as most disastrous. We are heading for a most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in touch with him all right." "Well, when he's done with them." "I wouldn't keep you waiting; good heavens, you take precedence of any Indian visitor, of course. I meant what's the good. Why mix yourself up with pitch?" "I say he's innocent" "Innocence or guilt, why mix yourself up? What's the good?" "Oh, good, good," he cried, feeling that every earth was being stopped. "One's got to breathe occasionally, at least I have. I mayn't see her, and now I mayn't see him. I promised him to come up here with him to you, but Turton called me off before I could get two steps." "Sort of all-white thing the Burra Sahib would do," he muttered sentimentally. And trying not to sound patronizing, he stretched his hand over the table, and said: "We shall all have to hang together, old man, I'm afraid. I'm your junior in years, I know, but very much your senior in service; you don't happen to know this poisonous country as well as I do, and you must take it from me that the general situation is going to be nasty at Chandrapore during the next few weeks, very nasty | that'll do." McBryde stopped, naively puzzled. It was obvious to him that any two sahibs ought to pool all they knew about any Indian, and he could not think where the objection came in. "I dare say you have the right to throw stones at a young man for doing that, but I haven't. I did the same at his age." So had the Superintendent of Police, but he considered that the conversation had taken a turn that was undesirable. He did not like Fielding's next remark either. "Miss Quested really cannot be seen? You do know that for a certainty?" "You have never explained to me what's in your mind here. Why on earth do you want to see her?" "On the off chance of her recanting before you send in that report and he's committed for trial, and the whole thing goes to blazes. Old man, don't argue about this, but do of your goodness just ring up your wife or Miss Derek and enquire. It'll cost you nothing." "It's no use ringing up them," he replied, stretching out for the telephone. "Callendar settles a question like that, of course. You haven't grasped that she's seriously ill." "He's sure to refuse, it's all he exists for," said the other desperately. The expected answer came back: the Major would not hear of the patient being troubled. "I only wanted to ask her whether she is certain, dead certain, that it was Aziz who followed her into the cave." "Possibly my wife might ask her that much." "But _I_ wanted to ask her. I want someone who believes in him to ask her." "What difference does that make?" "She is among people who disbelieve in Indians." "Well, she tells her own story, doesn't she?" "I know, but she tells it to you." McBryde raised his eyebrows, murmuring: "A bit too finespun. Anyhow, Callendar won't hear of you seeing her. I'm sorry to say he gave a bad account just now. He says that she is by no means out of danger." They were silent. Another card was brought into the office Hamidullah's. The opposite army was gathering. "I must put this report through now, Fielding." "I wish you wouldn't." "How can I not?" "I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well as most disastrous. We are heading for a most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in touch with him all right." "Well, when he's done with them." "I wouldn't keep you waiting; good heavens, you take precedence of any Indian visitor, of course. I meant what's the good. Why mix yourself up with pitch?" "I say he's innocent" "Innocence or guilt, why mix yourself up? What's the good?" "Oh, good, good," he cried, feeling that every earth was being stopped. "One's got to breathe occasionally, at least I have. I mayn't see her, and now I mayn't see him. I promised him to come up here with him to you, but Turton called me off before I could get two steps." "Sort of all-white thing the Burra Sahib would do," he muttered sentimentally. And trying not to sound patronizing, he stretched his hand over the table, and said: "We shall all have to hang together, old man, I'm afraid. I'm your junior in years, I know, but very much your senior in service; you don't happen to know this poisonous country as well as I do, and you must take it from me that the general situation is going to be nasty at Chandrapore during the next few weeks, very nasty indeed." "So I have just told you." "But at a time like this there's no room for well personal views. The man who doesn't toe the line is lost." "I see what you mean." "No, you don't see entirely. He not only loses himself, he weakens his friends. If you leave the line, you leave a gap in the line. These jackals" he pointed at the lawyers' cards "are looking with all their eyes for a gap." "Can I visit Aziz?" was his answer. "No." Now that he knew of Turton's attitude, the policeman had no doubts. "You may see him on a magistrate's order, but on my own responsibility I don't feel justified. It might lead to more complications." He paused, reflecting that if he had been either ten years younger or ten years longer in India, he would have responded to McBryde's appeal. The bit between his teeth, he then said, "To whom do I apply for an order?" "City Magistrate." "That sounds comfortable!" "Yes, one can't very well worry poor Heaslop." More "evidence" appeared at this moment the table-drawer from Aziz' bungalow, borne with triumph in a corporal's arms. "Photographs of women. Ah!" "That's his wife," said | on the track of what had happened. They made straight for our bungalow, and are there now. That's the story as far as I know it yet. She sent the driver to join you. I think she behaved with great sense." "I suppose there's no possibility of my seeing Miss Quested?" he asked suddenly. "I hardly think that would do. Surely." "I was afraid you'ld say that. I should very much like to." "She is in no state to see anyone. Besides, you don't know her well." "Hardly at all. . . . But you see I believe she's under some hideous delusion, and that that wretched boy is innocent." The policeman started in surprise, and a shadow passed over his face, for he could not bear his dispositions to be upset. "I had no idea that was in your mind," he said, and looked for support at the signed deposition, which lay before him. "Those field-glasses upset me for a minute, but I've thought since: it's impossible that, having attempted to assault her, he would put her glasses into his pocket." "Quite possible, I'm afraid; when an Indian goes bad, he goes not only very bad, but very queer." "I don't follow." "How should you? When you think of crime you think of English crime. The psychology here is different. I dare say you'll tell me next that he was quite normal when he came down from the hill to greet you. No reason he should not be. Read any of the Mutiny records; which, rather than the Bhagavad Gita, should be your Bible in this country. Though I'm not sure that the one and the other are not closely connected. Am I not being beastly? But, you see, Fielding, as I've said to you once before, you're a schoolmaster, and consequently you come across these people at their best. That's what puts you wrong. They can be charming as boys. But I know them as they really are, after they have developed into men. Look at this, for instance." He held up Aziz' pocket-case. "I am going through the contents. They are not edifying. Here is a letter from a friend who apparently keeps a brothel." "I don't want to hear his private letters." "It'll have to be quoted in Court, as bearing on his morals. He was fixing up to see women at Calcutta." "Oh, that'll do, that'll do." McBryde stopped, naively puzzled. It was obvious to him that any two sahibs ought to pool all they knew about any Indian, and he could not think where the objection came in. "I dare say you have the right to throw stones at a young man for doing that, but I haven't. I did the same at his age." So had the Superintendent of Police, but he considered that the conversation had taken a turn that was undesirable. He did not like Fielding's next remark either. "Miss Quested really cannot be seen? You do know that for a certainty?" "You have never explained to me what's in your mind here. Why on earth do you want to see her?" "On the off chance of her recanting before you send in that report and he's committed for trial, and the whole thing goes to blazes. Old man, don't argue about this, but do of your goodness just ring up your wife or Miss Derek and enquire. It'll cost you nothing." "It's no use ringing up them," he replied, stretching out for the telephone. "Callendar settles a question like that, of course. You haven't grasped that she's seriously ill." "He's sure to refuse, it's all he exists for," said the other desperately. The expected answer came back: the Major would not hear of the patient being troubled. "I only wanted to ask her whether she is certain, dead certain, that it was Aziz who followed her into the cave." "Possibly my wife might ask her that much." "But _I_ wanted to ask her. I want someone who believes in him to ask her." "What difference does that make?" "She is among people who disbelieve in Indians." "Well, she tells her own story, doesn't she?" "I know, but she tells it to you." McBryde raised his eyebrows, murmuring: "A bit too finespun. Anyhow, Callendar won't hear of you seeing her. I'm sorry to say he gave a bad account just now. He says that she is by no means out of danger." They were silent. Another card was brought into the office Hamidullah's. The opposite army was gathering. "I must put this report through now, Fielding." "I wish you wouldn't." "How can I not?" "I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well as most disastrous. We are heading for a most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in touch with him all right." "Well, when he's done with them." "I wouldn't keep you waiting; good heavens, you take precedence of any Indian visitor, of course. I meant what's the good. Why mix yourself up with pitch?" "I say he's innocent" "Innocence or guilt, why mix yourself up? What's the good?" "Oh, good, good," he cried, feeling that every earth was being stopped. "One's got to breathe occasionally, at least I have. I mayn't see her, and now I mayn't see him. I promised him to come up here with him to you, but Turton called me off before I could get two steps." "Sort of all-white thing the Burra Sahib would do," he muttered sentimentally. And trying not to sound patronizing, he stretched his hand over the table, and said: "We shall all have to hang together, old man, I'm afraid. I'm your junior in years, I know, but very much your senior in service; you don't happen to know this poisonous country as well as I do, and you must take it from me that the general situation is going to be nasty at Chandrapore during the next few weeks, very nasty indeed." "So I have just told you." "But at a time like this there's no room for well personal views. The man who doesn't toe the line is lost." "I see what you mean." "No, you don't see entirely. He not only loses himself, he weakens his friends. If you leave the line, you leave a gap in the line. These jackals" he pointed at the lawyers' cards "are looking with all their eyes for a gap." "Can I visit Aziz?" was his answer. "No." Now that he knew of Turton's attitude, the policeman had no doubts. "You may see him on a magistrate's order, but on my own responsibility I don't feel justified. It might lead to more complications." He paused, reflecting that if he had been either ten years younger or ten years longer in India, he would have responded to McBryde's appeal. The bit between his teeth, he then said, "To whom do I apply for an order?" "City Magistrate." "That sounds comfortable!" "Yes, one can't very well worry poor Heaslop." More "evidence" appeared at this moment the table-drawer from Aziz' bungalow, borne with triumph in a corporal's arms. "Photographs of women. Ah!" "That's his wife," said Fielding, wincing. "How do you know that?" "He told me." McBryde gave a faint, incredulous smile, and started rummaging in the drawer. His face became inquisitive and slightly bestial. "Wife indeed, I know those wives!" he was thinking. Aloud he said: "Well, you must trot off now, old man, and the Lord help us, the Lord help us all. . ." As if his prayer had been heard, there was a sudden rackety-dacket on a temple bell. CHAPTER XIX Hamidullah was the next stage. He was waiting outside the Superintendent's office, and sprang up respectfully when he saw Fielding. To the Englishman's passionate "It's all a mistake," he answered, "Ah, ah, has some evidence come?" "It will come," said Fielding, holding his hand. "Ah, yes, Mr. Fielding; but when once an Indian has been arrested, we do not know where it will stop." His manner was deferential. "You are very good to greet me in this public fashion, I appreciate it; but, Mr. Fielding, nothing convinces a magistrate except evidence. Did Mr. McBryde make any remark when my card came in? Do you think my application annoyed him, will prejudice him against my friend at all? If so, I will gladly retire." "He's not annoyed, and if he was, what does it matter?" "Ah, it's all very well for you to speak like that, but we have to live in this country." The leading barrister of Chandrapore, with the dignified manner and Cambridge degree, had been rattled. He too loved Aziz, and knew he was calumniated; but faith did not rule his heart, and he prated of "policy" and "evidence" in a way that saddened the Englishman. Fielding, too, had his anxieties he didn't like the field-glasses or the discrepancy over the guide but he relegated them to the edge of his mind, and forbade them to infect its core. Aziz _was_ innocent, and all action must be based on that, and the people who said he was guilty were wrong, and it was hopeless to try to propitiate them. At the moment when he was throwing in his lot with Indians, he realized the profundity of the gulf that divided him from them. They always do something disappointing. Aziz had tried to run away from the police, Mohammed Latif had not checked the pilfering. And now Hamidullah! instead of raging and denouncing, he temporized. Are Indians cowards? No, but | up Aziz' pocket-case. "I am going through the contents. They are not edifying. Here is a letter from a friend who apparently keeps a brothel." "I don't want to hear his private letters." "It'll have to be quoted in Court, as bearing on his morals. He was fixing up to see women at Calcutta." "Oh, that'll do, that'll do." McBryde stopped, naively puzzled. It was obvious to him that any two sahibs ought to pool all they knew about any Indian, and he could not think where the objection came in. "I dare say you have the right to throw stones at a young man for doing that, but I haven't. I did the same at his age." So had the Superintendent of Police, but he considered that the conversation had taken a turn that was undesirable. He did not like Fielding's next remark either. "Miss Quested really cannot be seen? You do know that for a certainty?" "You have never explained to me what's in your mind here. Why on earth do you want to see her?" "On the off chance of her recanting before you send in that report and he's committed for trial, and the whole thing goes to blazes. Old man, don't argue about this, but do of your goodness just ring up your wife or Miss Derek and enquire. It'll cost you nothing." "It's no use ringing up them," he replied, stretching out for the telephone. "Callendar settles a question like that, of course. You haven't grasped that she's seriously ill." "He's sure to refuse, it's all he exists for," said the other desperately. The expected answer came back: the Major would not hear of the patient being troubled. "I only wanted to ask her whether she is certain, dead certain, that it was Aziz who followed her into the cave." "Possibly my wife might ask her that much." "But _I_ wanted to ask her. I want someone who believes in him to ask her." "What difference does that make?" "She is among people who disbelieve in Indians." "Well, she tells her own story, doesn't she?" "I know, but she tells it to you." McBryde raised his eyebrows, murmuring: "A bit too finespun. Anyhow, Callendar won't hear of you seeing her. I'm sorry to say he gave a bad account just now. He says that she is by no means out of danger." They were silent. Another card was brought into the office Hamidullah's. The opposite army was gathering. "I must put this report through now, Fielding." "I wish you wouldn't." "How can I not?" "I feel that things are rather unsatisfactory as well as most disastrous. We are heading for a most awful smash. I can see your prisoner, I suppose."<|quote|>He hesitated.</|quote|>"His own people seem in touch with him all right." "Well, when he's done with them." "I wouldn't keep you waiting; good heavens, you take precedence of any Indian visitor, of course. I meant what's the good. Why mix yourself up with pitch?" "I say he's innocent" "Innocence or guilt, why mix yourself up? What's the good?" "Oh, good, good," he cried, feeling that every earth was being stopped. "One's got to breathe occasionally, at least I have. I mayn't see her, and now I mayn't see him. I promised him to come up here with him to you, but Turton called me off before I could get two steps." "Sort of all-white thing the Burra Sahib would do," he muttered sentimentally. And trying not to sound patronizing, he stretched his hand over the table, and said: "We shall all have to hang together, old man, I'm afraid. I'm your junior in years, I know, but very much your senior in service; you don't happen to know this poisonous country as well as I do, and you must take it from me that the general situation is going to be nasty at Chandrapore during the next few weeks, very nasty indeed." "So I have just told you." "But at a time like this there's no room for well personal views. The man who doesn't toe the line is lost." "I see what you mean." "No, you don't see entirely. He not only loses himself, he weakens his friends. If you leave the line, you leave a gap in the line. These jackals" he pointed at the lawyers' cards "are looking with all their eyes for a gap." "Can I visit Aziz?" was his answer. "No." Now that he knew of Turton's attitude, the policeman had no doubts. "You may see him on a magistrate's order, but on my own responsibility I don't feel justified. It might lead to more complications." He paused, reflecting that if he had been either ten years younger or ten years longer in India, he would have responded to McBryde's appeal. The bit between his teeth, he then said, "To whom do I apply for an order?" "City Magistrate." "That sounds comfortable!" "Yes, one can't very well worry poor Heaslop." More "evidence" appeared at this moment the table-drawer from Aziz' bungalow, borne with triumph in a corporal's arms. "Photographs of women. Ah!" "That's his wife," said Fielding, wincing. "How do you know that?" "He told me." McBryde gave a faint, incredulous smile, and started rummaging in the drawer. His face became inquisitive and slightly bestial. "Wife indeed, I know those wives!" he was thinking. Aloud he said: "Well, you must trot off now, old man, and the Lord help us, the Lord help us all. . ." As if his prayer had been heard, there was a sudden rackety-dacket on a temple bell. CHAPTER XIX Hamidullah was the next stage. He was waiting outside the Superintendent's office, and sprang up respectfully when he saw Fielding. To the Englishman's passionate "It's all a mistake," he answered, "Ah, ah, has some evidence come?" "It will come," said Fielding, holding his hand. "Ah, yes, Mr. Fielding; but when once an Indian has been arrested, we do not know where it will stop." His manner was deferential. "You are very good to greet me in this public fashion, I appreciate it; but, Mr. Fielding, nothing convinces a magistrate except evidence. Did Mr. McBryde make any | A Passage To India |
Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case. | No speaker | gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good | Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare | duly. Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little depressed. "But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But perhaps he will come out and join you later on." "Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute | and other Continental necessaries. That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly. Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little depressed. "But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But perhaps he will come out and join you later on." "Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute and less kindly of the two sisters. "However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see him." "No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't like it." "No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy. "Really? How funny! I should have thought | in the shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing the words that it adorned: "Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a beacon in the roaring tides of darkness. Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near Bloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas, and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books, mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries. That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly. Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little depressed. "But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But perhaps he will come out and join you later on." "Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute and less kindly of the two sisters. "However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see him." "No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't like it." "No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy. "Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--" "Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have met you!" They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just got through that time." But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I am unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most unpleasant." Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described | It's so beautiful." "The tune's right enough," said Freddy, "but the words are rotten. Why throw up the sponge?" "How stupidly you talk!" said his sister. The Santa Conversazione was broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye. Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual felicity of phrase, said: "This has been a day and a half." "Stop thine ear against the singer--" "Wait a minute; she is finishing." "From the red gold keep thy finger; Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." "I love weather like this," said Freddy. Mr. Beebe passed into it. The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change in a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part. "Vacant heart and hand and eye--" Perhaps the song stated "the better part" rather too strongly. He half fancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose in the shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing the words that it adorned: "Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a beacon in the roaring tides of darkness. Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near Bloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas, and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books, mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries. That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly. Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little depressed. "But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But perhaps he will come out and join you later on." "Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute and less kindly of the two sisters. "However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see him." "No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't like it." "No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy. "Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--" "Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have met you!" They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just got through that time." But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I am unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most unpleasant." Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans' character: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would be everywhere in no time. "But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time?" "Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. I shall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn in here." "Here" was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must take shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was on the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a mythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses and gods. "Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy a guide-book." "You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm so stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this hole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil--well and good, and I'm thankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not announce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?" "It's only for a few days." "But why at all?" Lucy was silent. She | the Greek scheme alone. It was expensive and dramatic--both qualities that her mother loathed. Nor would Charlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested with Mr. Beebe. By his tact and common sense, and by his influence as a clergyman--for a clergyman who was not a fool influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatly--he bent her to their purpose, "I don't see why Greece is necessary," she said; "but as you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I can't understand. Lucy! Let's tell her. Lucy!" "She is playing the piano," Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door, and heard the words of a song: "Look not thou on beauty's charming." "I didn't know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too." "Sit thou still when kings are arming, Taste not when the wine-cup glistens--" "It's a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are!" "What's that?" called Lucy, stopping short. "All right, dear," said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into the drawing-room, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say: "I am sorry I was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias." Rather a hard voice said: "Thank you, mother; that doesn't matter a bit." "And you are right, too--Greece will be all right; you can go if the Miss Alans will have you." "Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!" Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips. Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione, in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together about noble things--a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to marry or to travel when she had such friends at home? "Taste not when the wine-cup glistens, Speak not when the people listens," she continued. "Here's Mr. Beebe." "Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways." "It's a beautiful song and a wise one," said he. "Go on." "It isn't very good," she said listlessly. "I forget why--harmony or something." "I suspected it was unscholarly. It's so beautiful." "The tune's right enough," said Freddy, "but the words are rotten. Why throw up the sponge?" "How stupidly you talk!" said his sister. The Santa Conversazione was broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye. Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual felicity of phrase, said: "This has been a day and a half." "Stop thine ear against the singer--" "Wait a minute; she is finishing." "From the red gold keep thy finger; Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." "I love weather like this," said Freddy. Mr. Beebe passed into it. The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change in a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part. "Vacant heart and hand and eye--" Perhaps the song stated "the better part" rather too strongly. He half fancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose in the shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing the words that it adorned: "Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a beacon in the roaring tides of darkness. Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near Bloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas, and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books, mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries. That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly. Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little depressed. "But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But perhaps he will come out and join you later on." "Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute and less kindly of the two sisters. "However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see him." "No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't like it." "No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy. "Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--" "Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have met you!" They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just got through that time." But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I am unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most unpleasant." Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans' character: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would be everywhere in no time. "But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time?" "Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. I shall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn in here." "Here" was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must take shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was on the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a mythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses and gods. "Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy a guide-book." "You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm so stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this hole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil--well and good, and I'm thankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not announce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?" "It's only for a few days." "But why at all?" Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite easy to say, "Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he hears I've given up Cecil may begin again" "--quite easy, and it had the incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that king of terrors--Light. Ever since that last evening at Florence she had deemed it unwise to reveal her soul. Mrs. Honeychurch, too, was silent. She was thinking, "My daughter won't answer me; she would rather be with those inquisitive old maids than with Freddy and me. Any rag, tag, and bobtail apparently does if she can leave her home." And as in her case thoughts never remained unspoken long, she burst out with: "You're tired of Windy Corner." This was perfectly true. Lucy had hoped to return to Windy Corner when she escaped from Cecil, but she discovered that her home existed no longer. It might exist for Freddy, who still lived and thought straight, but not for one who had deliberately warped the brain. She did not acknowledge that her brain was warped, for the brain itself must assist in that acknowledgment, and she was disordering the very instruments of life. She only felt, "I do not love George; I broke off my engagement because I did not love George; I must go to Greece because I do not love George; it is more important that I should look up gods in the dictionary than that I should help my mother; everyone else is behaving very badly." She only felt irritable and petulant, and anxious to do what she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she proceeded with the conversation. "Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I'm not tired of Windy Corner." "Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour?" She laughed faintly, "Half a minute would be nearer." "Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?" "Hush, mother! People will hear you" "; for they had entered Mudie's. She bought Baedeker, and then continued: "Of course I want to live at home; but as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want to be away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into my money | hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." "I love weather like this," said Freddy. Mr. Beebe passed into it. The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change in a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part. "Vacant heart and hand and eye--" Perhaps the song stated "the better part" rather too strongly. He half fancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose in the shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing the words that it adorned: "Vacant heart and hand and eye Easy live and quiet die." However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a beacon in the roaring tides of darkness. Chapter XIX: Lying to Mr. Emerson The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near Bloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas, and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books, mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries. That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly. Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little depressed. "But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."<|quote|>Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to drum nervously upon her card-case.</|quote|>"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But perhaps he will come out and join you later on." "Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute and less kindly of the two sisters. "However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see him." "No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't like it." "No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy. "Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--" "Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have met you!" They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just got through that time." But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I am unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most unpleasant." Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans' character: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would be everywhere in no time. "But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time?" "Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. I shall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn in here." "Here" was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must take shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was on the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a mythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses and gods. "Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy a guide-book." "You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm so stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this hole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil--well and good, and I'm thankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not announce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?" "It's only for a few days." "But why at all?" Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite easy to say, "Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he hears I've given up Cecil may begin again" "--quite easy, and it had the incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that king of | A Room With A View |
was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor. | No speaker | looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, | didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and | the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. "Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say." Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound | running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short tight wincey dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. "Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say." Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot. "I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. "I hate you--I hate you--I hate you--" | she began, for she read disapproval in Mrs. Rachel's expression. "It's a great responsibility you've taken on yourself," said that lady gloomily, "especially when you've never had any experience with children. You don't know much about her or her real disposition, I suppose, and there's no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But I don't want to discourage you I'm sure, Marilla." "I'm not feeling discouraged," was Marilla's dry response, "when I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. I suppose you'd like to see Anne. I'll call her in." Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short tight wincey dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. "Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say." Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot. "I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. "I hate you--I hate you--I hate you--" a louder stamp with each assertion of hatred. "How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!" "Anne!" exclaimed Marilla in consternation. But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like an atmosphere. "How dare you say such things about me?" she repeated vehemently. "How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn't a spark of imagination | Marilla permitted the "chatter" until she found herself becoming too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a curt command to hold her tongue. Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came, wandering at her own sweet will through the lush, tremulous grasses splashed with ruddy evening sunshine; so that good lady had an excellent chance to talk her illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with such evident enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must bring its compensations. When details were exhausted Mrs. Rachel introduced the real reason of her call. "I've been hearing some surprising things about you and Matthew." "I don't suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself," said Marilla. "I'm getting over my surprise now." "It was too bad there was such a mistake," said Mrs. Rachel sympathetically. "Couldn't you have sent her back?" "I suppose we could, but we decided not to. Matthew took a fancy to her. And I must say I like her myself--although I admit she has her faults. The house seems a different place already. She's a real bright little thing." Marilla said more than she had intended to say when she began, for she read disapproval in Mrs. Rachel's expression. "It's a great responsibility you've taken on yourself," said that lady gloomily, "especially when you've never had any experience with children. You don't know much about her or her real disposition, I suppose, and there's no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But I don't want to discourage you I'm sure, Marilla." "I'm not feeling discouraged," was Marilla's dry response, "when I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. I suppose you'd like to see Anne. I'll call her in." Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short tight wincey dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. "Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say." Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot. "I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. "I hate you--I hate you--I hate you--" a louder stamp with each assertion of hatred. "How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!" "Anne!" exclaimed Marilla in consternation. But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like an atmosphere. "How dare you say such things about me?" she repeated vehemently. "How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn't a spark of imagination in you? I don't care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before even by Mrs. Thomas' intoxicated husband. And I'll _never_ forgive you for it, never, never!" Stamp! Stamp! "Did anybody ever see such a temper!" exclaimed the horrified Mrs. Rachel. "Anne go to your room and stay there until I come up," said Marilla, recovering her powers of speech with difficulty. Anne, bursting into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until the tins on the porch wall outside rattled in sympathy, and fled through the hall and up the stairs like a whirlwind. A subdued slam above told that the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence. "Well, I don't envy you your job bringing _that_ up, Marilla," said Mrs. Rachel with unspeakable solemnity. Marilla opened her lips to say she knew not what of apology or deprecation. What she did say was a surprise to herself then and ever afterwards. "You shouldn't have twitted her about her looks, Rachel." "Marilla Cuthbert, you don't mean to say that you are upholding her in such a | her chin in her hands, drifted luxuriously out on a sea of daydreams. CHAPTER IX. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified |ANNE had been a fortnight at Green Gables before Mrs. Lynde arrived to inspect her. Mrs. Rachel, to do her justice, was not to blame for this. A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good lady to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for people who were; but grippe, she asserted, was like no other illness on earth and could only be interpreted as one of the special visitations of Providence. As soon as her doctor allowed her to put her foot out-of-doors she hurried up to Green Gables, bursting with curiosity to see Matthew and Marilla's orphan, concerning whom all sorts of stories and suppositions had gone abroad in Avonlea. Anne had made good use of every waking moment of that fortnight. Already she was acquainted with every tree and shrub about the place. She had discovered that a lane opened out below the apple orchard and ran up through a belt of woodland; and she had explored it to its furthest end in all its delicious vagaries of brook and bridge, fir coppice and wild cherry arch, corners thick with fern, and branching byways of maple and mountain ash. She had made friends with the spring down in the hollow--that wonderful deep, clear icy-cold spring; it was set about with smooth red sandstones and rimmed in by great palm-like clumps of water fern; and beyond it was a log bridge over the brook. That bridge led Anne's dancing feet up over a wooded hill beyond, where perpetual twilight reigned under the straight, thick-growing firs and spruces; the only flowers there were myriads of delicate "June bells," those shyest and sweetest of woodland blooms, and a few pale, aerial starflowers, like the spirits of last year's blossoms. Gossamers glimmered like threads of silver among the trees and the fir boughs and tassels seemed to utter friendly speech. All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the odd half hours which she was allowed for play, and Anne talked Matthew and Marilla half-deaf over her discoveries. Not that Matthew complained, to be sure; he listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his face; Marilla permitted the "chatter" until she found herself becoming too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a curt command to hold her tongue. Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came, wandering at her own sweet will through the lush, tremulous grasses splashed with ruddy evening sunshine; so that good lady had an excellent chance to talk her illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with such evident enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must bring its compensations. When details were exhausted Mrs. Rachel introduced the real reason of her call. "I've been hearing some surprising things about you and Matthew." "I don't suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself," said Marilla. "I'm getting over my surprise now." "It was too bad there was such a mistake," said Mrs. Rachel sympathetically. "Couldn't you have sent her back?" "I suppose we could, but we decided not to. Matthew took a fancy to her. And I must say I like her myself--although I admit she has her faults. The house seems a different place already. She's a real bright little thing." Marilla said more than she had intended to say when she began, for she read disapproval in Mrs. Rachel's expression. "It's a great responsibility you've taken on yourself," said that lady gloomily, "especially when you've never had any experience with children. You don't know much about her or her real disposition, I suppose, and there's no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But I don't want to discourage you I'm sure, Marilla." "I'm not feeling discouraged," was Marilla's dry response, "when I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. I suppose you'd like to see Anne. I'll call her in." Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short tight wincey dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. "Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say." Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot. "I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. "I hate you--I hate you--I hate you--" a louder stamp with each assertion of hatred. "How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!" "Anne!" exclaimed Marilla in consternation. But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like an atmosphere. "How dare you say such things about me?" she repeated vehemently. "How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn't a spark of imagination in you? I don't care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before even by Mrs. Thomas' intoxicated husband. And I'll _never_ forgive you for it, never, never!" Stamp! Stamp! "Did anybody ever see such a temper!" exclaimed the horrified Mrs. Rachel. "Anne go to your room and stay there until I come up," said Marilla, recovering her powers of speech with difficulty. Anne, bursting into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until the tins on the porch wall outside rattled in sympathy, and fled through the hall and up the stairs like a whirlwind. A subdued slam above told that the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence. "Well, I don't envy you your job bringing _that_ up, Marilla," said Mrs. Rachel with unspeakable solemnity. Marilla opened her lips to say she knew not what of apology or deprecation. What she did say was a surprise to herself then and ever afterwards. "You shouldn't have twitted her about her looks, Rachel." "Marilla Cuthbert, you don't mean to say that you are upholding her in such a terrible display of temper as we've just seen?" demanded Mrs. Rachel indignantly. "No," said Marilla slowly, "I'm not trying to excuse her. She's been very naughty and I'll have to give her a talking to about it. But we must make allowances for her. She's never been taught what is right. And you _were_ too hard on her, Rachel." Marilla could not help tacking on that last sentence, although she was again surprised at herself for doing it. Mrs. Rachel got up with an air of offended dignity. "Well, I see that I'll have to be very careful what I say after this, Marilla, since the fine feelings of orphans, brought from goodness knows where, have to be considered before anything else. Oh, no, I'm not vexed--don't worry yourself. I'm too sorry for you to leave any room for anger in my mind. You'll have your own troubles with that child. But if you'll take my advice--which I suppose you won't do, although I've brought up ten children and buried two--you'll do that ?talking to' you mention with a fair-sized birch switch. I should think _that_ would be the most effective language for that kind of a child. Her temper matches her hair I guess. Well, good evening, Marilla. I hope you'll come down to see me often as usual. But you can't expect me to visit here again in a hurry, if I'm liable to be flown at and insulted in such a fashion. It's something new in _my_ experience." Whereat Mrs. Rachel swept out and away--if a fat woman who always waddled _could_ be said to sweep away--and Marilla with a very solemn face betook herself to the east gable. On the way upstairs she pondered uneasily as to what she ought to do. She felt no little dismay over the scene that had just been enacted. How unfortunate that Anne should have displayed such temper before Mrs. Rachel Lynde, of all people! Then Marilla suddenly became aware of an uncomfortable and rebuking consciousness that she felt more humiliation over this than sorrow over the discovery of such a serious defect in Anne's disposition. And how was she to punish her? The amiable suggestion of the birch switch--to the efficiency of which all of Mrs. Rachel's own children could have borne smarting testimony--did not appeal to Marilla. She did not believe she could whip a child. No, some | those shyest and sweetest of woodland blooms, and a few pale, aerial starflowers, like the spirits of last year's blossoms. Gossamers glimmered like threads of silver among the trees and the fir boughs and tassels seemed to utter friendly speech. All these raptured voyages of exploration were made in the odd half hours which she was allowed for play, and Anne talked Matthew and Marilla half-deaf over her discoveries. Not that Matthew complained, to be sure; he listened to it all with a wordless smile of enjoyment on his face; Marilla permitted the "chatter" until she found herself becoming too interested in it, whereupon she always promptly quenched Anne by a curt command to hold her tongue. Anne was out in the orchard when Mrs. Rachel came, wandering at her own sweet will through the lush, tremulous grasses splashed with ruddy evening sunshine; so that good lady had an excellent chance to talk her illness fully over, describing every ache and pulse beat with such evident enjoyment that Marilla thought even grippe must bring its compensations. When details were exhausted Mrs. Rachel introduced the real reason of her call. "I've been hearing some surprising things about you and Matthew." "I don't suppose you are any more surprised than I am myself," said Marilla. "I'm getting over my surprise now." "It was too bad there was such a mistake," said Mrs. Rachel sympathetically. "Couldn't you have sent her back?" "I suppose we could, but we decided not to. Matthew took a fancy to her. And I must say I like her myself--although I admit she has her faults. The house seems a different place already. She's a real bright little thing." Marilla said more than she had intended to say when she began, for she read disapproval in Mrs. Rachel's expression. "It's a great responsibility you've taken on yourself," said that lady gloomily, "especially when you've never had any experience with children. You don't know much about her or her real disposition, I suppose, and there's no guessing how a child like that will turn out. But I don't want to discourage you I'm sure, Marilla." "I'm not feeling discouraged," was Marilla's dry response, "when I make up my mind to do a thing it stays made up. I suppose you'd like to see Anne. I'll call her in." Anne came running in presently, her face sparkling with the delight of her orchard rovings; but, abashed at finding the delight herself in the unexpected presence of a stranger, she halted confusedly inside the door. She certainly was an odd-looking little creature in the short tight wincey dress she had worn from the asylum, below which her thin legs seemed ungracefully long. Her freckles were more numerous and obtrusive than ever; the wind had ruffled her hatless hair into over-brilliant disorder; it had never looked redder than at that moment. "Well, they didn't pick you for your looks, that's sure and certain,"<|quote|>was Mrs. Rachel Lynde's emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor.</|quote|>"She's terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say." Anne "came there," but not exactly as Mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot. "I hate you," she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. "I hate you--I hate you--I hate you--" a louder stamp with each assertion of hatred. "How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I'm freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!" "Anne!" exclaimed Marilla in consternation. But Anne continued to face Mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like an atmosphere. "How dare you say such things about me?" she repeated vehemently. "How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn't a spark of imagination in you? I don't care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before even by Mrs. Thomas' intoxicated husband. And I'll _never_ forgive you for it, never, never!" Stamp! Stamp! "Did anybody ever see such a temper!" exclaimed the horrified Mrs. Rachel. "Anne go to your room and stay there until I come up," said Marilla, recovering her powers of speech with difficulty. Anne, bursting into tears, rushed to the hall door, slammed it until the tins on the porch wall outside rattled in sympathy, and fled through the hall and up the stairs like a whirlwind. A subdued slam above told that the door of the east gable had been shut with equal vehemence. "Well, I don't envy you your job bringing _that_ up, Marilla," said Mrs. Rachel with unspeakable solemnity. Marilla opened her lips to say she knew not what of apology or deprecation. What she did say was a surprise to herself then and ever afterwards. "You shouldn't have twitted her about her looks, Rachel." "Marilla Cuthbert, you don't mean to say that you are upholding her in such a terrible display of temper as we've just seen?" demanded Mrs. Rachel indignantly. "No," said Marilla slowly, "I'm not trying to excuse her. She's been very naughty and I'll have to give her a talking to about it. But we must make allowances for her. She's never been taught what is right. And you _were_ too hard on her, Rachel." Marilla could not help tacking on that last sentence, although she was again surprised at herself for doing it. Mrs. Rachel got up with an air of offended dignity. "Well, I see that I'll have to be very careful what I say after this, Marilla, | Anne Of Green Gables |
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