checkmate

checkmate “And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?” —_Edmund Burke’s "Can I trust your Royal Highness with a secret?... How good you are, sir! Your Royal Highness shall see my treasure, but you are too great as a Prince, and too virtuous as a man, to betray me.","Why, I am awfully nice!" she cried, delighted with the picture. "I'll never know myself! Do get off your things, Norn, I'm crazy to see how you look.","Good, good!" cried the old fellow, and rolling across to his friend, he grasped him by the hand, and held on, looking at his friend with a face a-work with emotion, with an expression indeed that seemed perilously close to further dry sobs.,Dr. Bland, coming into the room, goes up to the bedside and feels his pulse, and tries to put something between his lips, but he refuses to take anything.,“Just out on a little jaunt. Where did you come from?”，"Secret instructions to be read to the officers and crew of the above said Minorca by Mr Lawrence whenever the ship shall have arrived at twenty degrees of north latitude, and about thirty degrees of west longitude."，"But do you mean to tell me the girl he loves will give him up just because fortune is frowning on him?" asks Mona, slowly. "Sure she couldn't be so mean as that."，"All the better to embrace you with, my little girl.""I think we'll have to begin with the feeding," said Bruce, as Miss Jinny and Mrs. Shelly, gorgeous in their very best raiment, entered from their bedroom. "Madam, may I have the privilege of escorting you to the head of the table?"

The mind of Ferdinand was highly superior to the general influence of superstition; but, in the present instance, such strong correlative circumstances appeared, as compelled even incredulity to yield. He had himself heard strange and awful sounds in the forsaken southern buildings; he received from his father a dreadful secret relative to them—a secret in which his honor, nay even his life, was bound up. His father had also confessed, that he had himself there seen appearances which he could never after remember without horror, and which had occasioned him to quit that part of the castle. All these recollections presented to Ferdinand a chain of evidence too powerful to be resisted; and he could not doubt that the spirit of the dead had for once been permitted to revisit the earth, and to call down vengeance on the descendants of the murderer.,"What luck, sonny?" called the man, Tom, as he passed.,Patricia flung a look at Miss Jinny. "Really and truly I haven't any secret to confess, Bruce. I was only thinking how very nice it was for us, Judy and me, that we had such a genius for a sister.",As they went back to the flower-decked sitting-room, Judith edged close to whisper in her ear.,Evidently it was impossible to extract information from so impenetrable a man. Jen was thoroughly enraged by this display of obstinacy in a quarter where he least expected to find it. Usually sweet-tempered--especially toward his boys--the major quite lost control of his passion at the moment.,At this, in spite of everything, Rodney laughs lightly, and, taking her hand in his, draws it through his arm. There is love and trust and great content in his laugh.,'Ungracious boy!' replied the father, in a calm voice, 'desist from this language, nor add to the follies of youth the crime of murdering, or terrifying a defenceless old man. Your violence would urge me to become your enemy, did not previous inclination tempt me to be your friend. I pity the distresses of the lady Julia, to whom I am no stranger, and will cheerfully give her all the assistance in my power.',"Is it possible you see nothing to admire?" says Mona, with intense disgust.,The castle was buried in sleep when Ferdinand again joined his sisters in madame's apartment. With anxious curiosity they followed him to the chamber. The room was hung with tapestry. Ferdinand carefully sounded the wall which communicated with the southern buildings. From one part of it a sound was returned, which convinced him there was something less solid than stone. He removed the tapestry, and behind it appeared, to his inexpressible satisfaction, a small door. With a hand trembling through eagerness, he undrew the bolts, and was rushing forward, when he perceived that a lock withheld his passage. The keys of madame and his sisters were applied in vain, and he was compelled to submit to disappointment at the very moment when he congratulated himself on success, for he had with him no means of forcing the door.,"'Our'? How you associate yourself with these Rodneys!" he says, scornfully; "yet you are as unlike them as a dove is unlike a hawk. How came you to fall into their nest? And so if I could only consent to efface myself you would like me better,—tolerate me in fact? A poor return for annihilation. And yet," impatiently, "I don't know. If I could be sure that even my memory would be respected by you——." He pauses and pushes back his hair from his brow.,“Was it—was it some strange Mexicans?” asked Ted excitedly.,"Find out in the morning how she feels about it," said Elinor, switching off the light. "I'm pretty sure she'll want to go.".