silver play button image

silver play button image download +128k "Then you are really pleased? I am just what you want me to be? Oh! how you frightened me!" says the girl, laying her hand upon her heart with a pretty gesture of relief.,"It is not more extraordinary, surely, than calling a drunken young man 'tight,'" says Lady Rodney, with calm but cruel meaning.,Of life, or living creature,,It is the first time he has ever used the tone of authority towards her, and involuntarily she shrinks from him, and glances up at him from under her long lashes in a half frightened, half-reproachful fashion, as might an offended child.,"Now, this is kind,—very kind," says the little man, approvingly, shaking both their hands. "And so soon, too; no time lost. Poor soul! he is calling incessantly for you, my dear Mrs. Geoffrey. It is a sad case,—very—very. Away from every one he knows. But come in; come in."，"You will introduce me to your wife?" she asks, after a few minutes, in her even, trainante voice, and is then taken up to the big arm-chair before the fire, and is made known to Mona.，Old Man said, "I have not thought of that. We must decide it. I will take this buffalo chip and throw it in the river. If it floats, people will become alive again four days after they have died; they will die for four days only. But if it sinks, there will be an end to them." He threw the chip into the river, and it floated.，To this name, given to her in such an unkindly spirit, Mona clings with singular pertinacity. Once when Nolly has called her by it in Lady Rodney's hearing, the latter raises her head, and a remorseful light kindles in her eyes; and when Mr. Darling has taken himself away she turns entreatingly to Mona, and, with a warm accession of coloring, says, earnestly,—"Yes, that is just your greatest misfortune," she says, meditatively. "Love at any price. You would die out of the sunshine, or spoil, which would be worse. You will never be quite happy, I think; and yet perhaps," with a faint sigh, "you get your own good out of your life, after all,—happiness more intense, if briefer, than we more material people can know. There, shall I tell you something? I think you have gained more love in a short time than any other person I ever knew. You have conquered me, at least; and, to tell you the truth," with a slight grimace, "I was quite determined not to like you. Now lie down, and in a minute or two I shall send Halkett to you with the rose-water."

As Mona comes still nearer, the words of the speaker reach her, and sink into her brain. It is Lady Rodney who is holding forth, and what she says floats lightly to Mona's ears. She is still advancing, unmindful of anything but the fact that she cannot see Geoffrey again for more hours than she cares to count, when the following words become clear to her, and drive the color from her cheeks,—,So Kŭt-o-yĭs´ set off for that place, and when he came to the camp he went into an old woman's lodge.,"Why not? You will go there, perhaps when you are married.","Thank you," says Lady Rodney, coldly, letting her lids fall over her eyes.,Then, as breakfast was virtually over before the letters came, they all rise, and disperse themselves as fancy dictates. But Geoffrey goes alone to where he knows he shall find Nicholas in his own den.,"I am glad you have been pleased to-night," says Mona, shyly, abashed by his studied silence. "But," nervously, "Killarney is even more beautiful. You must go there.",Another pause. Mona is on thorns. Will the branching path, that may give her a chance of escaping a further tete-a-tete with him, never be reached?,"I dare say it is; but the fact remains. I don't know what is the matter with me. It is a barren feeling,—a longing, it may be, for something I can never obtain.",Just now his forehead is drawn up into a deep frown, as he reads the fatal letter that has reduced his mother to a Niobe. Another young man, his brother, Captain Rodney, who is two or three years younger than he, is looking over his shoulder, while a slight, brown-haired, very aristocratic looking girl is endeavoring, in a soft, modulated voice, to convey comfort to Lady Rodney.,"Were I to fling up this whole business and resign my chance, and leave these people in possession, what would I gain by it?" demands he. "They have treated me from the beginning with ignominy and contempt. You alone have treated me with common civility; and even you they have tutored to regard me with averted eyes.","Quite sure," says Mona, and then she laughs aloud—a sweet, joyous laugh,—and clasps her hands together with undisguised delight and satisfaction.,For this master of the Towers (so the story ran) Elspeth, in her younger days, had borne a love too deep for words, when she herself was soft and rosy-cheeked, with a heart as tender and romantic as her eyes were blue, and when her lips, were for all the world like "cherries ripe.".