Strawberry Sweeps

Strawberry Sweeps I was bleeding more or less profusely from some miserable cut on the "A poison-wand!" echoed Etwald, a sudden light showing in his cold eyes. "I never heard of such a thing.","The fact is David has not been quite himself since this trouble about Isabella," he said, gravely, "and he thinks it best to go away for a time. You know how he tortures himself over trifles.",The Rodneys are, for the most part, in the library, the room dearest to them. Mona is telling Doatie's fortune on cards, Geoffrey and Nicholas are discussing the merits and demerits of a new mare, Lady Rodney in still struggling with the crimson sock,—when the door is opened, and Nolly entering adds himself to the group.,Nolly is especially and oppressively cheerful. He is blind to the depression that marks Mona and Geoffrey for its own, and quite outdoes himself in geniality and all-round amiability.,"Free-and-easy-going would be a more appropriate term, from all I have heard."，Mona is the first to recover herself.，"Have you seen anything of the French Fleet?"，“And where are the rest?”"He's a Russian refugee," she said, triumphantly, and as she quickly covered her work again, and they passed out through the little side entrance, she told them the tragic scrap of the model's history that had sifted through the gossip of the work room.

"Pray do not give yourselves so much trouble on my account," says Lady Rodney, with intense but subdued indignation.,Then Mona goes on quietly,—,She looked up quickly. "And may I ask who that is?","The spell seems to know more about me than I do myself," said she, contemptuously. "I don't believe in your spells, Dido. I know from Maurice that they are nonsense!","Reserve what you have to say for my private ear!" exclaimed Captain Acton, with a severe look and in a stern voice. "Where is your Captain?","Are you a man, to make me such a speech?" she says, passionately, fixing her eyes upon him with withering contempt.,"And poor!" finished Etwald.,'On recovering I called wildly for my children, and went to the window—but you were gone! Not all the entreaties of Vincent could for some time remove me from this station, where I waited in the fond expectation of seeing you again—but you appeared no more! At last I returned to my cell in an ecstasy of grief which I tremble even to remember.,Eagle dumbly pointed to the Captain's cabin. "It's an artfully laid plot," said he, "if the Capt'n's to be believed. She's supposed to be locked up agin her will. By-and-by she's to go among the sailors and swear that[Pg 273] she's been carried off by violence. This is to make her father believe that she never consented to run away, as she don't want to lose the fortune as 'ud otherwise come to her.",She was dressed in a simple velvet gown the color that the twilight sky takes just before the stars come out, sapphire blue. Her red pouting lips were curved in a caressing smile, and her eyes rimmed with their black curling lashes were full of the joy of life. Betty’s verdict, although punctuated by an interrogation point, had been correct when she first put the question to Moses, “Aint our new teacher lovely with her shinin’ blue eyes?”,When she had done with her drawing, she went to the piano and passed another half-hour at that instrument, then took up some work which she presently neglected for a novel, and shortly after eleven o'clock she mounted to her bedroom to prepare herself for a drive with her aunt.,Yet pretty Dorothy at her very best moments had never looked, nor ever could look, as lovely as Mona appears now, as she stands with her hands loosely clasped before her, and the divine light of pity in her eyes, that are shining softly like twin stars..