The Secrets of Alchemy

The Secrets of Alchemy We reached the outskirts of the city. Several minutes elapsed, no person appeared, and he repeated the stroke. A step was presently heard within, the gate was unbarred, and a thin shivering figure presented itself. The duke solicited admission, but was refused, and reprimanded for disturbing the convent at the hour sacred to prayer. He then made known his rank, and bade the friar inform the Superior that he requested shelter from the night. The friar, suspicious of deceit, and apprehensive of robbers, refused with much firmness, and repeated that the convent was engaged in prayer; he had almost closed the gate, when the duke, whom hunger and fatigue made desperate, rushed by him, and passed into the court. It was his intention to present himself to the Superior, and he had not proceeded far when the sound of laughter, and of many voices in loud and mirthful jollity, attracted his steps. It led him through several passages to a door, through the crevices of which light appeared. He paused a moment, and heard within a wild uproar of merriment and song. He was struck with astonishment, and could scarcely credit his senses!,Billy looked the Doctor over and wondered. He was not subtle enough to suspect the Doctor’s purpose. “Golly! I’d hate to have to wash as much as a doctor,” he exclaimed, as they stepped into the exquisitely appointed lavatory. “You look now like you’d just had a Turkish bath. But I’m glad of the chance for myself.” He surely did look better when the two came out and crossed to the big dining-room; though there was a tell-tale streak around his neck, and his crown lock stood stiff and divided.,Dew-diadem'd.","My dear Major Jen:,"I am sure he is a man of resolution," said Lucy. "I never look at him without seeming to see why it is he should be so gallant and desperate a fighter at sea. He has a cast of face that is very uncommon, full of power of thought, and the shape of his head is like that Greek bust in the library. How is it that a man with his spirit is unable to deny himself what he knows must speedily bring him to ruin?"，The loft in the barn had been swept and garnished by Mr. Wopp for Betty’s moving picture show, and thither, after the preliminary how-d’you-do’s were over, she led her eager audience. Her head was held at the exact angle for ascending the ladder to perform the imposing duties of moving picture operator, and her foot was on the first rung when she suddenly thought of the collection box for the carrots the children were carrying.，Several hands waved wildly and a chorus of voices eagerly broke in; through the childish babel could be heard a lisping narrative.，Aha! there was Christina, Tellef’s little sister."Stuff and nonsense!" growled David, hotly. "He'd know better than that."

They all smile, and say, "Yes, indeed," or "Oh, yes, indeed," or plain "Yes," in a breath. They all feel intensely obliged to Violet for her very ordinary little remark.,Bruce laid down his cracker with a grin. "No, you don't, young 'un," he said decisively. "I'm not going to turn my choicest possession into a puzzle department. I'm going to spring it myself, right now.",“Try a mile with this can and see where you come out in the race.”,“You figgered you was goin’ to git clean away an’ dust it for the dam, huh? Goin’ to tell ’em that we-uns up here was aimin’ to play thunder with that ol’ bunch o’ masonry that’s a-goin’ to take the bread out o’ our mouths, huh?”,He looked at the beaming faces, at the beautiful table with Jean’s great pagoda cake in the centre, the dates, 1893-1906, in evergreen; at the flowers everywhere; at the dishes,—they usually ate from vine leaves at their out-of-door feasts,—at the paper napkins folded fantastically and hovering over the table like gay butterflies. His eloquent face told his surprise, his gratitude, his delight. He opened his mouth to speak some fitting word, but it wouldn’t come. He tried again, for he felt the occasion called for something formally appreciative. But only a whimsical idea flitted into his mind; and he sang back—,In the evening who should come to visit Father but the elderly, spectacled gentleman they had rowed to shore in the morning!,Oh, dear! Johnny was in despair. The boys had all been much quicker than he, and they would just say that he was too little and must be allowed double time.,“It’s my fault, too, Mrs. Bennett; don’t put the blame all on Billy,” Jean half sobbed; and hurried after him.,That ardent daughter of Jubal sighed, not for the encroachment on her Sunday afternoon leisure hour, but because she had found out the lesson was to be on Jonah and the whale. She had always been partial to the story of the ravens feeding Elijah and to the parable of the Prodigal Son. She felt that her temperament inclined her most to stories where hospitality and mouthwatering descriptions of hunger appeased provided the dramatic interest. Well she knew that the Tishbite and the erring son who returned to the feast of fatted calf would have received full justice at her hands. As for Jonah, and the whale with the inordinate oesophagus, she would do her best.,The badger put his head out of the hole and said, "What do you want, my brother?",And very honestly, too, because at the time of their visits, when Lady Rodney was entertaining them in the big drawing-room and uttering platitudes and pretty lies by the score, she was deep in the recesses of the bare brown wood, roaming hither and thither in search of such few flowers as braved the wintry blasts.,At last Jerry said with forced enthusiasm, “All right, old man, come along. I reckon there’s another nag for you down at the stables. We’ll go up to old man Holman’s ranch. He asked me to come up for dinner. There’s always an extra place for anyone who stops by.”.