The King: Eternal Monarch

The King: Eternal Monarch Frank had not interrupted her, “and sent Josh home with her bonnet on, “Mother,” he resumed, “I know I must freeze to some sort of business, and that mighty soon, too. But a preacher—why, he can’t be like anybody. He never has any fun.”,"You are pleased to talk conundrums," says Rodney, with a shrug. "I confess my self sufficiently dull to have never guessed one.",This eulogy on the departing Larry she delivers with much unction, and a good deal of check apron in the corner of one eye.,"Then thank you, and I shall go with you, if you will allow me," says Geoffrey, hurriedly, as he sees her disappearing.,And very honestly, too, because at the time of their visits, when Lady Rodney was entertaining them in the big drawing-room and uttering platitudes and pretty lies by the score, she was deep in the recesses of the bare brown wood, roaming hither and thither in search of such few flowers as braved the wintry blasts.，CHAPTER XXXI.For a second Mona's courage fails her, and then it returns with threefold force. In truth, she is nearer death at this moment than she herself quite knows.，It would be impossible to describe the feelings, sensations, passions of three of the principal actors in this story. Who can analyse human emotion when its state is one of almost chaotic conflict? Sir William Lawrence being satisfied that the sail ahead was Captain Acton's barque, fixed his face in a mask iron-hard with resolution to endure, come what would. His answers were short, and to the[Pg 429] point. He had little to say. His tendency to the garrulity of old age had temporarily withered; he was as grim and reserved as though he commanded a line-of-battle ship, whose stern-walk was exclusively his promenade. He was an old sailor and a gentleman: he prided himself upon his descent; he greatly loved honour and loyalty, which is the spirit of honour, and above all, he loved truth. Yonder was his son in charge of a ship he was endeavouring to steal from his benefactor; he had by a base stratagem kidnapped the sweet and beautiful daughter of his friend; he had proved himself a liar, a thief, a scoundrel in the most voluminous sense of the word. The people of the frigate commanded by Lord Garlies might, doubtless must, come to hear all about his wrongdoing, and through them the story would leak with plenty of colour and plenty of exaggeration, into every ward-room and gun-room and cockpit in His Majesty's Service. These were thoughts and considerations to hold the Admiral austerely silent, and keep him to himself whilst the chase continued.，"You evidently want to get rid of me," says Rodney, discouraged, taking up his hat. He takes up her hand, too, and holds it warmly, and looks long and earnestly into her face.“Like the lazy coward he is,” Billy tartly interrupted.

"I am glad you have at last deigned to take some small notice of me," says he, with a faint touch of pique in his tone. And then, looking at him again, she sees it is the young man who had nearly ridden over her some time ago, and tells herself she has been just a little rude to his Grace the Duke of Lauderdale.,"Dear me," she says, throwing up her dainty head, and flinging, with a petulant gesture, the unoffending grass far from her, "what an escape I have had! How his mother would have hated me! Surely I should count it lucky that I discovered all about her in time. Because really it doesn't so very much matter; I dare say I shall manage to be quite perfectly happy here again, after a little bit, just as I have been all my life—before he came. And when he is gone"—she pauses, chokes back with stern determination a very heavy sigh, and then goes on hastily and with suspicious bitterness, "What a temper he has! Horrid! The way he flung away my hand, as if he detested me, and flounced down that hill, as if he hoped never to set eyes on me again! With no 'good-by,' or 'by your leave,' or 'with your leave,' or a word of farewell, or a backward glance, or anything! I do hope he has taken me at my word, and that he will go straight back, without seeing me again, to his own odious country.","Is it?" says she, a little wistfully. "You think so now; but if afterwards you should know regret, or——",“No worse ’n you, I reckon,” was the rueful response. Billy’s appearance justified Jimmy’s speech; for freckles were standing out large and ghastly from one or two very white spots on the younger boy’s battered face. “Can you get home alone?”,Though uncertain that she regards him with any feeling stronger than that of friendliness (because of the strange coldness that she at times affects, dreading perhaps lest he shall see too quickly into her tender heart), yet instinctively he knows that he is welcome in her sight, and that "the day grows brighter for his coming." Still, at times this strange coldness puzzles him, not understanding that,“I’m afraid you’re right,” was the other’s answer. “But I’m sure glad my old man isn’t[171] mixed up in it any more than he is. I s’pose you want me to go back and stick around home? Don’t want to much—things are more’n likely going to happen round here and I’d like to be on the job.”,"No, no!" cried Isabella, with a shudder. "Don't tell me any more of those horrible things.",He was soon at the “lodge of ample size” made the week before, not of “strong logs” but of old fence-rails and willow twigs. He wondered if the girls would be able to imagine it a “lodge,” or if May Nell and Jean, who were to come a little later, could fix it according to the poem.,Leaf III.,“Can I hev a piece of jelly-roll, Mar?” coaxed Betty, stemming the tide of her brother’s complaints.,All through that long night he knelt beside the bed upon which lay the corpse of the man whom he had loved as a son. The bedroom of Maurice was on the ground floor and the windows looked out onto a little lawn, which was girdled by thick trees in which the nightingales were singing. The sorrowful songs of the birds, flitting in the moonlight and amid the cloistral dusk of the trees, seemed to Jen like a requiem over the young life which had passed away. The major was broken-hearted by the sorrow which had come upon him, and when he issued from the chamber of death he looked years older than when he entered it. It seemed to his big loving heart as though the woman he loved had died anew in the person of her son.,She bids them fly to shade earth's brightest blooms,.