the Evil Bet

the Evil Bet CHAPTER XII This is a handsome offer, all things considered, but Mona turns a deaf ear to it. She is standing on her door-step at this moment, and now descends until she reaches the tiny gravelled path.,"Battersea!" cried Jen, thunderstruck. "Did he see the body carried off?",Patricia, though a bit disappointed, felt delightfully superior as she replied loftily, "It isn't so bad. We don't mind, you know, because we're so interested in the work.","Then Nolly's last will suit you down to the ground," says Nicholas. "Besides its wit, it possesses the rare quality of being strictly true. It really occurred. It is founded on fact. He himself vouches for the truth of it.",Then Dorothy, going up to the new-comer, removes her hat from her head, and pats her cheeks, and tells her with one of her loveliest smiles that she has "such a delicious color, dearest! just like a wee bit of fresh apple-blossom!"，They pulled it into the water and watched with bated breath. It leaked badly and Jerry was disgusted. Bob, however, knowing more about boats than his companion, realized that the long time the boat had been out of water had caused the strips to contract and in all probability a few hours’ soaking would make them tight. Bob had insisted on putting the boat into the water before paying for it and as the water came in more slowly after a few minutes, he was satisfied. They paid the man and he went off after wishing them a rather pessimistic farewell.，Nell Gordon, ready for school, came into the kitchen and catching sight of Betty was seized with such uncontrollable mirth that she fled upstairs again.，"Tell her to make a hack at it anyway," urged Margaret Howes earnestly. "Originality is the thing that counts, and she's got as good a chance as any of us there.""How do you know that?" asked the inspector sharply.

"Hush, he's coming," warned Patricia, turning pale in spite of her brave words. "Listen, he has begun.",The child reared without pets was delighted with the animal life about her; the cats, old Bouncer, the white chickens, and pigeons cooing in the loft.,"But," said Captain Acton, who was perhaps helped to a display of comparative composure of mind by the Admiral's reception of the news, "though if possible we shall sail to-morrow evening or the following day in pursuit, my opinion is, sir, that even if Mr Lawrence were left to his own shifts he would never be able to compass his undertaking. First of all, he has a highly respectable man, who has proved a good servant to me, to deal with in his mate. Will Mr Eagle permit him to carry the Minorca to Rio? Will the crew have nothing to say? What will be thought by all hands when it gets about that my daughter is on board, a prisoner in confinement in the cabin? And is my daughter so enamoured of Mr Lawrence that because he has placed her in a highly equivocal[Pg 222] situation she will be willing to marry him, or to have anything to say to him on their arrival at Rio?","I remember it; and I remember, too, who watched all that: do you?" he asks, his eyes fixed upon hers.,It is certain, anyway, that about nine months after the return of the Aurora, Captain Acton, Sir William Lawrence, and Miss Lucy Acton, left Old Harbour Town, for the neighbourhood of London, where after an interval, the exact period of which being uncertain, is not of historic value enough to demand research, Old Harbour Town received the news, this time in print, in the Annual Register or La Belle Assemblée, or some such publication of the period, that Mr Walter Lawrence, late of His Majesty's Royal Navy,[Pg 454] only son of Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, K.C.B., was on such a day united in the bonds of Holy Matrimony to Lucy, only daughter and co-heiress of Captain Acton, R.N. (retired).,“No, Mosey, I must hurry and get some flowers fer school to-day.”,Captain Weaver was carrying out the instructions he had received at Old Harbour Town. He was chasing the Minorca. The recovery of Lucy had led to no change in those instructions. Though Captain Acton in his gratitude for the restoration of his child was willing to relinquish the pursuit and to leave the Minorca and the handsome piratical scoundrel who had sailed away with her and Lucy to their fate, he had not revealed his thoughts to Captain Weaver, nor to the Admiral, and the Aurora at this hour of daybreak on a day in June 1805, was steadily stemming in chase of the barque which she was to capture, Captain Weaver did not exactly know how. For the Aurora was unarmed, whilst the Minorca mounted four pieces of artillery, and was in command of a naturally desperate fighting and fearless spirit, one whose neck would certainly be broken by the hangman if he was taken: unless indeed his crew turned upon him, and backed their yards and stopped the ship, that her owner might come by his own, despite Mr Lawrence's levelled[Pg 390] pistol or any threats he might make use of in reference to the powder magazine. "But," Captain Weaver had thought to himself on several occasions, "time enough to know what's a-going to happen when we heave the Minorca into view or draw abreast of her, for who's to tell but that we are bound to miss her, in which case we shall receive her at Rio, providing her skipper hasn't got scent of us and shifted his hellum for another port, and then there can be no blazing away of carronades on one side and a trimming of sail to keep clear of shot on the other.",The others stood, awed, frightened.,"Erie," spoke the boy as they turned to resume their way, "Ma told me to tell you that she'd be over ag'in tonight to stay with you. She's had an awful time keepin' teacher's friends from swarmin' over to see how he was gettin' along an' she says she simply had to promise that they could come over after supper. I guess the whole Settlement is over to our place. I better lope along an' tell 'em the good news." He turned away as they reached the gate—then hesitated.,"Phew, that doesn't sound like our fine lady of the stony heart!" exclaimed Griffin. "Are you sure, kidlet?","Isn't she lovely?" she demanded in a thrilling whisper of Elinor, who had slipped into her things and was already at the door.,“Wisht I hed a chance to holler into one of them brass dinner-horns, too,” he grumbled..