TOPCARD info

TOPCARD info Register +188K “How is your Ada since she had the jaundice, Mrs. Stolway?” inquired Airs. Bliggins.,“Yours truly,,“O Billy, he’s so beautiful and so clever; and he put his nose up to Flash so gratefully. Flash just mewed again, low as before, and walked off round the house. And Tom went and ate his breakfast.”,“Last night I heard something on the Q. T. I didn’t mean to, but I’m glad I did. I was in the pantry chuckin’ some bread an’ butter under my solar plexus when I heard Mr. Wright tell sister in the sitting-room—I guess some door was open a crack—that his law business was growing a little. I didn’t hear the next words, but there was ‘please’ in italics in his voice. But sister said, an’ I heard her plain enough, ‘No, Hal, not till I’ve saved enough to take Billy through school.’ ‘I’ll help—’ Mr. Wright got as far as that when this guy waked up,—knew he’d snuck information not intended for him. So I made a noise; I scatted the cat—no cat there—slammed the door, and kicked up a racket generally so’s they’d know I was there.”,“What is Betty like?”，But minds may stray though eyes seem attentive. Two boys began to indulge surreptitiously in the mild amusement of extracting toothsome kernels from refractory shells. Cracking nuts not being conducive to alertness of mind, Mrs. Wopp promptly confiscated a large bag of filberts which proved to be the joint property of Pat Bliggins and Pete Stolway.，The little stranger girl smiled winningly. Her childish companions had not been numerous enough to justify her in drawing such close lines; and she liked the sweet, half timid faces that always looked so earnestly into her own. “Surely, I’ll play with you. I’ll come to see you some time when Mrs. Bennett says I may.”，In the blessin’s of to-day,“But it isn’t ten o’clock.”

“You’re George Rideout Smith’s kid, ain’t you?”,Old Dom Pedro, scenting fresh excitement, snorted and bolted. The Strong Man was not strong enough to hold him to line, though he guided the horse safely to the Carter stable, where Bess appeared suddenly, swaying alarmingly in her flimsy snake cage.,“What’s the use of goin’ to a dance and settin’ sleepin’ like one of them spinxes, Ebenezer?” she expostulated as she roused him from his slumbers. The good lady herself had danced almost incessantly until her face had taken on the hue of a ripe pippin.,“Sunday School, too? How long you’ll be away!”,“We won’t have any shadow people to-night, darling.” Mrs. Bennett rose and turned on the lights, though it was not yet dark; drew the curtains, and punched the fire till a storm of sparks sputtered up the chimney.,Along the ridge of soft sand left by receding waters Billy let his first contract to Harold, who immediately marshalled the “kindergarten” with their broken fire shovels, kitchen spoons, what not, and set them to digging briskly. “Straight to the line, mind you,” he sang out from time to time, as he set his pins along the line the “engineers had run.” Max was superintendent of telegraph construction; and Charley Strong, “the Strong Man,” and Jackson contracted for the tunnel. They were to start from each side, meet exactly in the middle in sixty days,—a minute stood for a day,—or pay five million dollars fine. And over all Billy kept a watchful eye, cast the glamour of his eager spirit.,“Swing with Captain Jinks, swing with the horse that ate the beans, swing with the girl with the great big feet.”,Yet it was a very quiet little child that crept down to the others a few minutes later; when asked of her fortune she burst into tears.,“No, my son.” The answer was more sincere than a few weeks before she could have believed possible. The coming of the child had taken from her life many hours of association with Billy, sweet as only mothers know; yet May Nell’s influence had softened and refined Billy, enlarged his vision.,“By heck!” ejaculated Mr. Wopp who sat in the front seat beside his wife and Betty. Then he glanced hastily around to see if anyone had noticed his irreverent outburst. But no one had. They were all too intent on other matters.,The service began and was proceeding with its accustomed smoothness and decorum when a most unseemly interruption occurred. Maria Mifsud had long entertained suspicions that all was not well with the interior of the organ. Lately a few of the notes had refused to make a sound, and to-day there seemed to be more of these delinquents than ever. While Mr. Bliggins was collecting the offering Maria began to play a voluntary carefully practised beforehand. She had fairly launched into “One Sweetly Solemn Thought” when suddenly she discerned peering curiously at her through one of the round holes which adorn the front of the instrument the small bright eye of a mouse. The intruder was apparently quite calm and self-possessed. Not so Maria. With a piercing shriek she jumped from the organ stool and rushing to the back of the church leaped wildly to the seat beside her scandalized and uncomprehending mother. Almost at the same moment the offending mouse scampered down the internal anatomy of the organ and gained freedom through an exit beside the pedals. Mr. Wells turned crimson and stood on one foot. Most of the ladies of the congregation drew their feet up on the seat beside them. The mouse ran furiously along the sacred aisles of the church.,Everything at the dinner table was in keeping to Betty’s eyes, from the translucent china cups to the dainty blown bubbles of confection served with ice-cream; all so fragile that even one of her small brown fingers might crush them. She laughed as she thought of the annihilating effect, should Moses appear. The ices and the angel cake and the concocted kisses of whiteof-egg confirmed in her mind the suspicion that her wonderful holiday was a dream. “So your name is Betty Wopp?”.