Gamdom

Gamdom CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg. "Oh isn't that splendid," cried the girl. "He's such a dear old fellow when he's sober. Do you suppose he'll be strong enough to give up drink altogether, Billy?","By the by," he says, once more restored to something like hope, as he notes her drooping lids and changing color and how she hides from his searching gaze her dark, blue, Irish eyes, that, as somebody has so cleverly expressed it, seem "rubbed into her head with a dirty finger," so marked lie the shadows beneath them, that enhance and heighten their beauty,—"by the by, you told me you had a miniature of your mother in your desk, and you promised to show it to me." He merely says this with a view to gaining more time, and not from any overwhelming desire to see the late Mrs. Scully.,"I don't know, I'm sure. I have never thought about it. Did I cry, Geoffrey, when——" hesitates Mrs. Geoffrey, with a laugh, and a faint sweet blush.,"What have you to do," said Captain Acton, "that we should wait until Saturday?",“Well,” Ted replied, “I hung around the house all day yesterday and worked like a dog. Dad was tickled to death when I got back. Thought that I’d proved by coming back that he was right. But he took good care to give me a bunch of stiff jobs all the same. I didn’t get onto anything yesterday until about ten o’clock. I had hit the hay but had not gone to sleep, when Dave Wesley and John Harper rode in. Both of ’em are cattlemen and they were some lit up, believe me. They had been down to Las Cruces and had mopped up all the liquor in sight. They had been around the ranch a lot recently but I had not paid much attention to them. When they came along before they had long confabs with Dad, but took care to have them where they could not be overheard. Last night they were not so careful and in spite of all my old man could do they talked and talked loud. The booze made ’em careless, I reckon, ’cause I heard them all right.”，Patricia looked inquiringly at him.，A real love-letter ought to be like a cream puff with a drop of dynamite in it. Alfred's was that kind. I felt warm and happy down to my toes as I read it, and I turned round so that old Lilac Bush couldn't peep over my shoulder at what he said.，"Oh, you are my friend," says Mona, sweetly. Then, returning to the charge, "Perhaps after all it is not so much her fault as that of others. Evil counsellors work mischief in all ages."The curtain fell on the first act and the house rocked with the noise. It is probable the audience, predetermined to be pleased, would have approved anything offered; but so far it was more beautiful than had been expected.

The quaint words seemed incongruous for so small a child, as did her self-control; and the accent on the last syllable of “mama” made her seem almost foreign to Billy. Yet he admired her anew as she tried to hold still her trembling lips, to restrain her tears; as she threw up her head, winked hard, and felt vainly for a handkerchief.,There was the sound of the quick intaking of breath, and an audible long-drawn "Oh!" from the girls.,Maurice flushed crimson, and, resenting the mocking tone of Etwald, half rose from his seat; but without moving a finger, Etwald continued in a cold tone:,Therefore after a few days of miserable[Pg 157] anxiety, during which he was remarkable for sobriety and for conspicuous regard to his personal apparel, Mr Lawrence allowed the subject of the letter to slip from his mind, satisfied that it had been reduced to pulp by the wet that had fallen on the morning he lost it, or that it had been blown by some sportive stroke of breeze into a corner, or a place where it was as much lost as if it had dropped from his pocket into the ocean.,"Yes, sir.",Faces we miss,,"You can't try it, of course," said Patricia. "But I'm dead certain it'll be all right. What is the matter?" she asked, looking up as the door of the life room opened and the men began to come out carrying their canvases and drawing-boards as though the pose were over. "It can't be four o'clock, surely. Ju hasn't been gone a half hour.","What I say, Mr. Alymer! You--admire Miss Dallas?",“Such rough shaking, I don’t like. You must pick the apples.”,"It is a very great pity," she thought to herself, "that so handsome a young man, and one so spirited and daring as he has proved, should abandon himself to his vicious tastes. The longer he remains here the more sottish he will become, and the lower will his manhood sink till he will be at no pains to relieve his father from the obligation of supporting or helping him, and the gallant creature who, if he took the right path, would march easily to fame and dignity and affluence, must end as a drunken, trembling, degraded wretch, the object of pity or scorn, and who has pity for such people?" The beautiful girl sighed.,There is a ghostly tapping (as of some departed spirit who would fain enter once again into the old halls so long forgotten) against the window pane. Doubtless it is some waving branch flung hither and thither by the cruel tempest that rages without. Shadows come and go; and eerie thoughts oppress the breast:—,Mrs. Wopp’s suggestion had an immediate and salutary effect on the boy..