Chambers of Ancients

Chambers of Ancients "To be sure. Juliet Tracy, your chum at the 'igh school. I've often “Sing something, Mar.” Betty’s plaintive voice broke the silence.,Patricia gave her arm a quick squeeze. "If we weren't on a public platform, I'd kiss you for that, Elinor Kendall," she said, ardently. "You make things so comfortable for me.","Blossom," he said, after he had hushed me with another broken dose of love, as large as he thought I could stand—I could have stood more!—"I am never going to tell you how long I have loved you, but that day you came to me all in a flutter with Bennett's letter in your hand it is going to take you a lifetime to settle for. You were mine—and Bill's! How could you—but women don't understand!" I felt him shudder in my arms as I held him close.,CHAPTER XXIX.,"How can I go," he says, without daring to look at her, "until, at least, I ask for forgiveness?" He feels more nervous, more crushed in the presence of this little wounded Irish girl with her pride and her grief, than he has ever felt in the presence of an offended fashionable beauty full of airs and caprices. "Mona, love makes one cruel: I ask you to remember that, because it is my only excuse," he says, warmly. "Don't condemn me altogether; but forgive me once more."，He stood musing. It was, as we have seen, about a quarter past ten. Captain Acton would not have completed his business until[Pg 169] something after eleven. Should the Admiral invade him with the announcement of this strange disappearance of his ship? He considered the matter a little, and concluded that it must be impossible but that, although Captain Acton had been silent on the subject at the breakfast table, he must know the business of his ship, and that it was understood between him and Mr Lawrence that if the wind served, or anything unforeseen befell, or if Mr Lawrence in his judgment chose to sail before the time announced, he was at liberty to let go his fasts and blow into the open at any hour he pleased. Thus it struck the old man, though secretly he did not regard his own reasoning as sagacious.，"Oh, it's not, it's not that much," I fairly gasped and I couldn't help the tears coming into my eyes. I have never said much about it, but nobody knows how it hurts me to be as—large as I am. Just writing it down in a book mortifies me dreadfully. It's been coming on worse and worse every year since I married. Poor Mr. Carter had a very good appetite, and I don't know why I should have felt that I had to eat so much every day to keep him company; I wasn't always so considerate about him. Then he didn't want me to go for long walks with the dogs any more, because married women oughtn't to, or ride horseback either—no amusement left but himself; and—and—I just couldn't help the tears coming and dripping as I thought about it all and that awful waist measure in inches.，"Now you speak sensibly. The sooner you begin to hate me the better."CHAPTER IV.—WASH-DAY AT MRS. WOPP’S.

"Now, now," laughed Isabella, "no more of that nonsense, Battersea." She turned and ran along the veranda into the house. The tramp and the negress were alone.,When the two arrived, Nell Gordon was sitting with the sick child and crooning softly to her. Howard Eliot drew near, accidentally touching the firm round arm of Nell as he did so.,Fight gleamed in the big man’s eye, and for the breath of an instant he hesitated.,Billy had the excitable musical temperament. He spent his forces lavishly, and it was because of this that he was a leader; could think and act quickly in emergencies, as when he saved the operetta from failure. Edith and her mother knew that he had lived hard through the past few weeks, that next to Edith herself he had carried the entertainment, though Jean had been a host also. So it pleased Mrs. Bennett that afternoon to see Billy start off alone for the country.,But now the poor old grandmother was afraid. "I dare not tell him that," she exclaimed. "He would kill me, and you. His anger would be fearful.","Thanks. I'll put it off for a night or two," says Nolly, sleepily.,As a quick step sounded outside, she lowered herself slowly to a high-backed chair and waited, hands locked closely upon her lap.,"She hasn't told me anything, sir.",He picked up his hat and bounded outside. He found Croaker seated on the chicken yard fence, gravely surveying his ancient and mortal enemy, the old game cock, and whispering guttural insults that fairly made the rooster bristle with anger.,"Say, fellers, let me stay with you an' we'll split three ways, eh?" suggested Anson.,“I reckon I did my share of the work too,” exploded Tom. When the laugh died down, Mr. Hazard went on with his questions.,Suddenly his fears vanished. Croaker's voice, high-pitched and jubilant, had summoned him from somewhere on the other side of the building. As quickly as the weeds and his lagging feet would permit Billy joined him. Croaker was standing erect on a pile of old bottles, basking in the radiance of the colored lights which the sun drew from them. Undoubtedly in his black heart he felt that his master would glory in this glittering pile even as he gloried in it; for was there not in this heap of dazzling old bottles light enough to make the whole world glad?.