Midnight Marauders

Midnight Marauders after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it "What de doctor say?" asked Dido, in a low-voiced whisper.,A little further on Billy came face to face with Hinter. "How are you, Billy?" spoke the man, pleasantly. "Still driving the cows down to the lake for water, I see.","No," she said, quietly "I may persuade her into doing what I want.",It was Elinor's turn to raise misty eyes to the Messenger of the Ideal, and, like Judith, she was silent, busy with this thought.,“She’ll be afraid to sleep in the downstairs bedroom,” Mrs. Bennett reflected, planning rapidly for the unexpected child whom she still had no thought of turning from her door.，Wilson whistled. "What in the world does he want with that swamp, I wonder?" he cried.，"It is an early hour to be astir," he says, awkwardly; then, finding she makes no response, he goes on, still more awkwardly. "Can you tell me if this path will lead me to the road for Plumston?"，"Yes, which was waiting in the winding lane at the foot of your grounds. Two people carried the body between them--a man and a woman--but Battersea cannot give me their names."Betty, feeling that further explanations were worse than useless, submitted to be led to the sink where her energetic foster-mother subjected her to so many soapy treatments that in a few minutes time she emerged very red in the face but purified.

"How," he exclaimed, "I am always being disappointed! If you turn off at the bridge I shall not be allowed more than ten minutes' talk with you.","I'm not half so calm as I look, Miss Pat," she said, seriously. "I'm more excited than I ever was in my life. It's too deep to come to the surface, I guess. I haven't any words for it.",As the door into the dining-room opened to the little guests, St. Elmo Mifsud’s eyes almost darted out of his head, for there on the centre of a bountifully-spread table stood an enormous chocolate cake with eleven candles burning on it. The revelation supplied a fitting climax for the epochal event of a thrilling picture show.,The teacher followed his host, gingerly rubbing the knuckles which had been left blue by the farmer's strong grip.,But she was too late, for, before she could escape from the room, Dr. Etwald--as smiling and composed as ever--entered the door. He placed himself quietly before the enraged Mrs. Dallas.,"Pretty doesn't express it. She is quite intense; and new style, too, which of course is everything. You will present her next season, I suppose? You must, you know, if only in the cause of friendship, as I wouldn't miss seeing Mrs. Laintrie's and Mrs. Whelon's look of disgust when your wife comes on the scene for worlds!",This tirade has hardly the effect upon Dorothy that might be desired. She still stands firm, utterly unshaken by the storm that has just swept over her (frail child though she is), and, except for a slight touch of indignation that is fast growing within her eyes, appears unmoved.,"Well, the lightnin' part of this un's about past us, Maurice. But the rain's comin'. Guess that ol' elm's done fer. She's dead, though, else she wouldn't burn like that. By hokey!" he broke off, "will you look here?",The road had been steadily climbing and now it topped the crest of the hill. Before their eyes lay a wonderful panorama. To the north, the wide valley of the river stretched into the distance, a winding band of green and gold, flanked on each side by the glowing desert. Immediately below them the peaceful face of nature was broken.,"If I don't see you ag'in alive, Bill, good bye," whispered Maurice as he opened the door.,This is "sarkassum;" but Mona comprehends it not.,He stretched himself full length on the sand, and drank. When he arose, wiping his mouth, the cows had moved off lazily towards the Causeway. Billy did not follow at once. He did not want to miss the dance of the fire-flies above the darkening marsh along the Causeway, the twilight blush on the pine tips of Point Aux forest, the light-house gleam, nor the prayer-time hush of the mystery-filled rush-land. So he tarried beside the lake until the pines and cedars had melted into indistinct masses and the call of the whip-poor-will sounded faintly from far away. Then he turned homeward..