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"I should be uneasy in my mind in any case," said Miss Acton. "But that odious steward of the Minorca being in the business together with the unwarrantable sailing of the vessel hours before her time, fills me with dread and terror, and I cannot, brother, listen to what you say about her breakfasting and dining with a friend and going for a drive, and so forth. She would guess at our suspense and anxiety. Is our Lucy a girl to cause unnecessary pain and unhappiness, not indeed to those who love her as we do, but to the humblest creature in the world?" "There now!" exulted Anson, glancing triumphantly at his mother, who sat staring and incredulous at the unabashed offender. "Then what have you done to find out what has become of her?".
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"If you people don't want to miss the first act, we'll have to be toddling," he said. "It's about five minutes after two."I tried logging in using my phone number and I
was supposed to get a verification code text,but didn't
get it. I clicked resend a couple time, tried the "call
me instead" option twice but didn't get a call
either. the trouble shooting had no info on if the call
me instead fails.There was
"Yes," I said slowly, and as I looked out of the corner of my eyes from under the lashes that Tom himself had once told me were "too long and black to be tidy," I saw that he was in a condition to get the full shock. "If anybody wakes up this town it will be I," I said as I flung down the gauntlet with a high head.
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Conrad
This tale induced Captain Acton to indulge in the recital of a hair-breadth escape of his own, but a flow of exciting anecdotes was arrested by Miss Acton declaring that she was not strong enough to bear to hear such horrid, moving stories, particularly just a little before bed-time. "Oh, my dear, dear Lucy," he cried, "little can you conceive how the man who carried[Pg 362] you off has made your aunt and me, and his father, suffer!" They resumed their walk. When they had reached the bridge they found old Mr Greyquill, leaning over the rail, and gazing with intentness, with a sort of lifting leer which could not be defined as a smile, though it was like the shadow of one, in the direction of Old Harbour. This person was not used to address either of the gentlemen on meeting them in the public streets. They were accustomed to nod in silence. But this morning [Pg 175]as the Admiral and the Captain passed him, the Admiral so close as to brush his coat-tail, the old scrivener turned with a rapid motion and exclaimed, still preserving his singular leer: "I beg pardon, gentlemen, but as I fail to see the Minorca amongst the ships, may I enquire if she has sailed?" He finished his supper in a very gloomy mood. His character has been imperfectly drawn if it leaves upon the reader the impression that he was no more than a gallant, handsome, hectoring scoundrel, a drunkard, a liar, and a gambler. He was more than this, and better than this. In him was a very great deal of honest, sturdy, British human nature, and amongst those who saw the white skin of his character peeping through the rags and tatters of his morals was the young lady whom he had locked up in his cabin. Was he driving, had he driven her mad? This was an awful thought to him, a figure, a presentment on the canvas of his scheme which his utmost imagination never could have painted. He was passionately [Pg 298]fond of her. In truth he was risking his neck to win her. His inmost sensibility as a man and as a gentleman was in perpetual posture of recoil over the reflection that his hand it was that had made this gently-nurtured, beautiful, adorable girl a prisoner in a little ship that was rolling to a port in which she was to be fraudulently sold. He thought of her in the lovely drawing-room of Old Harbour House: the soft illumination of wax lights; the sweet incense of flowers; the piano whose keys were accompanied by her own melodious warblings; her little dog; all the comforts and luxuries which wealth could provide her with; all that a tender-hearted and loving father could endow his only child whom he loved with. And then he thought of her torn from all this pleasantness and sweetness and elegance, so robed that in a short period she must become beggarly to the eye; after her father's hospitable and plentiful table, fed with the poor fare of a common little ship..
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