Odibets

Odibets shore flies thro’ the maine.” —_The Fairie Queen_. "Yes, I know it now!" returns she, softly, yet with the gentle dignity that always belongs to her. Her lips quiver, but she draws herself up to her fullest height, and, throwing up her head, walks with a gait that is almost stately into the presence of the duchess.,"It is quite a romance," says Jack Rodney: "I never heard anything like it before off the stage." He is speaking to the room generally. "I doubt if any one but you, Mona, would have got the will out of him. He hates the rest of us like poison.","An' so he got away!" sighed Maurice.,His face is slightly flushed, his whole manner full of importance. He advances to where the two girls are sitting, and stops opposite Mona.,Paul Rodney, true to his word, has put in an appearance, much to the amazement of many in the room. Almost as Mona's dance with Nolly is at an end, he makes his way to her, and asks her to give him the next. Unfortunately, she is not engaged for it, and, being unversed in polite evasions, she says yes, quietly, and is soon floating round the room with him.，"What excuse did Mr Lawrence make to the men for sending you into another ship?"，"But the snakes an' turtles!" wailed the marooned pair.，"As if I'd publish it on the housetops!" she cried in infinite disdain. "It's plain you aren't much up in detective stories."“Jimmy.”

“Mar said she’d like to see the sights too onct again,” said Moses, watching with the air of an investigator the wart on his hand grow pale as he punched it with his finger, “It seemed so lonesome-like soon as Betty an’ Miss Gordon left, Mar says, says she, ‘Let’s go plum to Calgary ourselves’.” This diplomatic stroke crowned Moses’ arguments and his case was won.,"I am not lecturing anyone," replies he, looking very like her, now that his face has whitened a little and a quick fire has lit itself within his eyes. "I am merely speaking against a general practice. 'Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie,' is a line that always returns to me. And, as I love Mona better than anything on earth, I shall make it the business of my life to see she is not made unhappy by any one.",He finished his supper in a very gloomy mood. His character has been imperfectly drawn if it leaves upon the reader the impression that he was no more than a gallant, handsome, hectoring scoundrel, a drunkard, a liar, and a gambler. He was more than this, and better than this. In him was a very great deal of honest, sturdy, British human nature, and amongst those who saw the white skin of his character peeping through the rags and tatters of his morals was the young lady whom he had locked up in his cabin. Was he driving, had he driven her mad? This was an awful thought to him, a figure, a presentment on the canvas of his scheme which his utmost imagination never could have painted. He was passionately [Pg 298]fond of her. In truth he was risking his neck to win her. His inmost sensibility as a man and as a gentleman was in perpetual posture of recoil over the reflection that his hand it was that had made this gently-nurtured, beautiful, adorable girl a prisoner in a little ship that was rolling to a port in which she was to be fraudulently sold. He thought of her in the lovely drawing-room of Old Harbour House: the soft illumination of wax lights; the sweet incense of flowers; the piano whose keys were accompanied by her own melodious warblings; her little dog; all the comforts and luxuries which wealth could provide her with; all that a tender-hearted and loving father could endow his only child whom he loved with. And then he thought of her torn from all this pleasantness and sweetness and elegance, so robed that in a short period she must become beggarly to the eye; after her father's hospitable and plentiful table, fed with the poor fare of a common little ship.,There appeared on a point of rock impending over the valley the reliques of a palace, whose beauty time had impaired only to heighten its sublimity. An arch of singular magnificence remained almost entire, beyond which appeared wild cliffs retiring in grand perspective. The sun, which was now setting, threw a trembling lustre upon the ruins, and gave a finishing effect to the scene. They gazed in mute wonder upon the view; but the fast fading light, and the dewy chillness of the air, warned them to return. As Julia gave a last look to the scene, she perceived two men leaning upon a part of the ruin at some distance, in earnest conversation. As they spoke, their looks were so attentively bent on her, that she could have no doubt she was the subject of their discourse. Alarmed at this circumstance, madame and Julia immediately retreated towards the abbey. They walked swiftly through the woods, whose shades, deepened by the gloom of evening, prevented their distinguishing whether they were pursued. They were surprized to observe the distance to which they had strayed from the monastery, whose dark towers were now obscurely seen rising among the trees that closed the perspective. They had almost reached the gates, when on looking back, they perceived the same men slowly advancing, without any appearance of pursuit, but clearly as if observing the place of their retreat.,She flushes, opens her lips as if to speak, and yet is dumb,—perhaps through excess of emotion.,"I do, too, now," she declared. "But I've been paid up for my evilmindedness by losing half my good time. I think I'll try to find her and be awfully agreeable to her. I'll feel better for it, I'm sure.",She broke off in amazement at the familiar grin of one of the most glittering queens. "Griffin, of all people!" she cried, delightedly, and held out an eager hand.,“Mebbe them new seed catalogue folks cheated us, Mar,” he suggested.,On the return of the good woman, who had accompanied madame to the village on the preceding night, Julia went to the cottage at Farrini. Her grateful heart would not suffer her to depart without taking leave of her faithful friends, thanking them for their kindness, and informing them of her future prospects. They had prevailed upon her to spend the few intervening hours at this cot, whence she had just risen to meet madame.,How kind Nils was! The blouse came almost to Johnny’s knees, but now that he had something on there was no reason for not going to the wharf. Still, it was horrid to go among all those strangers, rigged out in this fashion.,To Jack his brothers are behaving with the utmost bonhommie. They have called him "old fellow" twice, and once Geoffrey has slapped him on the back with a heartiness well meant, and no doubt encouraging, but trying.,"If I were 'Geoffrey,' I think I shouldn't," says the duchess, meaningly..