Lucky Crown 20

Lucky Crown 20 CHAPTER VII "Kill Etwald!" ejaculated Jen. Then, after a pause, he added: "I believe you are right, Arkel, for it is not the man himself she cares about, but the stone. However. I'll see Isabella and make her persuade Dido to speak against Etwald.","There, do go away!" says this woodland goddess. "I am sick of you and your stupidity.",It seems such a direct running commentary on Mona's supposed ill deed that every one—as by a single impulse—looks up. Nolly and Jack Rodney exchange covert glances. But for the depression that reigns all round, I think these two would have given way to frivolous merriment.,"No; he was not a draper," says Mona, gently, and without haste.,Mona turns deadly pale, and then instinctively loosening the strings of her hat flings it from her. A touch of determination settles upon her lips, so prone to laughter at other times. Sitting on the bank, she draws off her shoes and stockings, and with the help of an alder that droops to the river's brim lowers herself into the water.，Ruth Clinton was the unfolding of the first hour-petal, and I got a glimpse of a heart of gold that I feel dumb with worship to think of. She's God's own good woman, and He made her what she is. I wish I could have borne her, or she me, and the tenderness of her arms was a sacrament. We two women just stood aside with life's artifices and concealments and let our own hearts do the talking.，Beauty, the youngest, was more polite, and thanked those who asked for her hand, but she was, as she told them, too young as yet, and wished to remain for a few more years as a companion to her father.，The old gentleman spoke with sternness, and held his eyes fastened upon his son, who cried: "Oh sir, I am not such a fool as to run any risks with this stroke of fortune.""But you have something on your mind, too. You have me. Why doesn't Jack go?"

"Oh, Geoffrey, how could you do it?" she says, reproachfully, alluding to his marriage,—"you whom I have so loved. What would your poor father have thought had he lived to see this unhappy day? You must have been mad.",He glanced suspiciously from one to the other of the boys, then said: "Ma sent me to see what happened to you, Bill. She says come on home to your supper.",Patricia felt rather ashamed of Elinor's lack of response to what she considered Doris' loyal support, and she broke out gratefully, "You'll tell them all, won't you? They'll soon understand if you tell them!","Well, not just now, I think," says Mona, evasively.,"It won't be the name of Battersea," said Jen, touching the button of the bell. "He had no motive to steal my devil-stick or to kill Maurice, nor could he have any reason to take possession of a dead body. Besides," added Jen, returning to his seat, "if this tramp were guilty, he would scarcely put his neck in danger by offering you the devil-stick for sale.",The boys eat up and stared at each other.,Meanwhile a circumstance occurred which increased the general discord, and threatened Emilia with the loss of her last remaining comfort—the advice and consolation of Madame de Menon. The marchioness, whose passion for the Count de Vereza had at length yielded to absence, and the pressure of present circumstances, now bestowed her smiles upon a young Italian cavalier, a visitor at the castle, who possessed too much of the spirit of gallantry to permit a lady to languish in vain. The marquis, whose mind was occupied with other passions, was insensible to the misconduct of his wife, who at all times had the address to disguise her vices beneath the gloss of virtue and innocent freedom. The intrigue was discovered by madame, who, having one day left a book in the oak parlour, returned thither in search of it. As she opened the door of the apartment, she heard the voice of the cavalier in passionate exclamation; and on entering, discovered him rising in some confusion from the feet of the marchioness, who, darting at madame a look of severity, arose from her seat. Madame, shocked at what she had seen, instantly retired, and buried in her own bosom that secret, the discovery of which would most essentially have poisoned the peace of the marquis. The marchioness, who was a stranger to the generosity of sentiment which actuated Madame de Menon, doubted not that she would seize the moment of retaliation, and expose her conduct where most she dreaded it should be known. The consciousness of guilt tortured her with incessant fear of discovery, and from this period her whole attention was employed to dislodge from the castle the person to whom her character was committed. In this it was not difficult to succeed; for the delicacy of madame's feelings made her quick to perceive, and to withdraw from a treatment unsuitable to the natural dignity of her character. She therefore resolved to depart from the castle; but disdaining to take an advantage even over a successful enemy, she determined to be silent on that subject which would instantly have transferred the triumph from her adversary to herself. When the marquis, on hearing her determination to retire, earnestly enquired for the motive of her conduct, she forbore to acquaint him with the real one, and left him to incertitude and disappointment.,"Such presumption, walking in our wood without permission," she says, haughtily.,"No, you must not think that. To wear anything that becomes you must be the perfection of dressing. Why wear a Tam O'Shanter hat when one looks hideous in it? And then too much study spoils effect: you know what Herrick says:—,"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.",With that, and looking round about her with insane cunning glittering in her eyes as diamonds tremble in the dancer's ear, as though she feared she might be watched by another in that berth, albeit her manner persuaded Mr Lawrence that she did not know he was looking on, she went to the locker, lifted the lid and disclosed her treasure-hidings of rings, soap, and the rest of it, looking up meanwhile as though into the face of a person who was bending a little to catch a sight of that nest of feathers, but looking up with such marvellous vitality in the composition of her lineaments, and in the penetrating glare of those eyes of hers which in hours of repose and content seemed to brood upon what they viewed, that Mr Lawrence could almost swear that he beheld the spectral shadow of the Royal apparition into whose face she gazed, stooping and peering into the nest at the end of the locker.,“And there are many times when the duty itself is disagreeable, yet doing it brings a finer joy than shirking it ever could bring.”.