HOT Fruits

HOT Fruits She went hurriedly from the house, and walked at her quickest pace For I’m a young thing and cannot leave my mother.”,Suddenly he woke with a start. Somebody was rapping gently on the shutters of the middle window. Glancing at the clock, Jen saw that it was three in the morning, and wondering who could be outside at so untimely an hour, he rose to open the window. With care, begotten by old experience, he picked up his revolver and held it ready while unbolting the window shutters. When they were thrown open he saw a white figure with outstretched hands standing before the window.,The soft chimes of the dinner gong began their melodious call before anyone could answer, and in the mad scramble to make themselves presentable in the shortest possible time, Hannah Ann's enthusiasms were forgotten.,Before Maurice could take up the implied challenge, which threw doubts upon his moral courage, Mrs. Dallas advanced heavily to meet her visitors. Isabella had already flitted like a white butterfly into the drawing-room, and her mother received the two young men alone. Her reception was, as usual, ponderous and vague.,“The strife is o’er, the battle done,” recommended Mrs. Wopp without hesitation. As Maria could not be persuaded to approach the organ the singing was lustily led by Mrs. Wopp and under her able leadership maintained the most vigorous proportions.，"Then I don't believe you!" breaks out Geoffrey, angrily. "I am positive you want to marry me; and just because of some wretched fad you have got into your head you are determined to make us both wretched."，"I don't believe you would," says Mona. "A great shock sobers one. I forgot to be frightened until it was all over. And then the dogs were a great support."，“Larst Tuesday,” she continued, “two p’licemen went ridin’ along the trail jist as we were comin’ home from school, an’ they had the beautifulest horses. Moses can ride any horse, no matter how ornery.” Betty’s eyes shone with pride.“No, Link, I guess not. I’ve seen it all and I think I’ll go down and visit with the boys at the bunkhouse till you get back.”

"It is you, my dear Dick, and old companion, mess-mate and friend, with whom I have enjoyed many a jaunt to which I could never[Pg 213] recur without passionately lamenting the days that are no more, who will help me in this desperate undertaking. I propose to navigate the vessel, not to Kingston, Jamaica, to which port she ought to be bound, but to the port in which you live, Rio de Janeiro. By a ruse which must prove successful, I think, I shall inveigle Miss Lucy Acton on board, and everything being ready, shall make sail immediately after she is carefully confined in my cabin. I have had a cabin set apart for my own use, which I represented to Captain Acton was to serve as a sick-bay. This drama has been well rehearsed. When far out at sea the crew will be summoned aft. I shall read some pretended sealed orders from Captain Acton, requiring me to carry the ship to Rio de Janeiro, and to sell her, if possible, after discharging the mate and crew, who will receive from Captain Acton, on application, treble the amount of their wages they would have got for sailing the vessel to Kingston. I shall also take care to destroy the ship's papers. And my story will be that I was overhauled by an American cruiser, who sent an officer on board. He examined the box of papers and took it away to show to his Captain, as he considered them unsatisfactory. The cruiser then braced her main top-sail yard to the wind and sailed away with the box of papers. On my arrival, we will consult together as to the safest course to be adopted for the sale of the ship and cargo, by which time I have no doubt the lady will have agreed to marry me either for love,[Pg 214] or because she has been placed in a situation which must render marriage imperative to her in the name of honour. With the money which I shall make, thanks to you, through this business, I will pay off all my debts in England, and Lucy Acton being my wife, or promising me her hand, I may count with absolute certainty upon the forgiveness of her father, who is not likely to abandon his only child for a behaviour that was no fault of hers, and the rest must be left to time.,"As to that, I don't care about discussing the point," was the reply. "Our own beliefs are our own business. But I must say that Etwald is a dangerous man, both to you and to me.","More comfortable, at least.",He was Mr Walter Lawrence, a son of Admiral Lawrence, and down to a recent period a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was something over thirty years of age, but drink, dissipation, the hard life of the sea and some fever which had got into his blood and proved intermittent, had worked in his face like time, and he might have passed for any age between thirty-five and forty-five. Nevertheless he was an extremely handsome man, of the classic Greek type in lineament, but improved, at least to the British eye, by the Saxon colouring of hair, skin, and eyes. His teeth were extraordinarily white and good for a sailor who had lived on gun-room fare in times when the ship's biscuit was flint, and the peas which rolled about in the discoloured hot water called soup, fit only for loading a blunderbuss with to shoot men dead. His eyes told their tale of drink, but they were large and fine and spirited; his light brown hair, according to the fashion of[Pg 39] the age, was combed down his back and lay in a rope-shaped tail there. He wore a wide-brimmed round hat, and his attire, a little the worse for wear, consisted of a blue coat, white waistcoat, sage-green kerseymere breeches, and, needless to say, the cravat was high and full. He stood about six feet, his figure was extremely well proportioned, and in addition to these merits his carriage had the easy elegance which the flow of the billow and the heave of the deck infuse into all human figures not radically vile and deformed. His voice was soft, winning, and somewhat plaintive, and no man, whether on or off the stage, not even Incledon, sang a song with more exquisite feeling and sweeter sincerity of passion.,So peace is restored, and presently, forsaking the pats of butter and the dairy, they wander forth into the open air, to catch the last mild breezes that belong to the dying day.,"Yes; like a street arab. He was one, once, you know, major, and has not forgotten his early habits. Well, he was driven with the carriage to Deanminster.",Mona, rising, pushes Violet gently into her own chair, a little black-and-gold wicker thing, gaudily cushioned.,The sound was an ominous warning to Moses, to finish his breakfast with all possible speed.,"Yes, it's going some," returned Griffin nonchalantly, as she started up the stair again, dragging the board after her. "The March Hare originated it back in the dark ages, and we've been doing it off and on—when the authorities don't get on to us.","Then Nolly's last will suit you down to the ground," says Nicholas. "Besides its wit, it possesses the rare quality of being strictly true. It really occurred. It is founded on fact. He himself vouches for the truth of it.",At this point the couple turned in their walk and confronted the house, at the hall door of which, in the act of descending the broad flight of steps, was a young lady putting on a glove, attended by a little terrier, who at sight of the gentlemen bounded along[Pg 19] the grass and barked with fury up at the Admiral's face.,Captain Acton's face changed with the astonishment wrought in him by his daughter's words and manner of speaking, and instantly to his memory recurred the remark of his sister that, if Mr Lawrence was in love with Lucy, she was equally in love with him, though she made no sign save to the scrutinising eye of an old maid..