Racer

Racer CHAPTER 15. Chowder. "Late again, Jermyn," says Sir Nicholas, lazily.,"I've been waitin' for you and now I'm goin' to lick you," he said.,"Well, that was just my luck, you see," says Darling "We have some property there. And, as I am not of much account at home, 'my awful dad' sent me over to Ireland to see why the steward didn't get in the rents. Perhaps he hoped the natives might pepper me; but, if so, it didn't come off. The natives, on the contrary, quite took to me, and adopted me on the spot. I was nearly as good as an original son of Erin in a week.","My word, she wasn't shy, was she?" interpolated Patricia, much diverted.,"Oh no, oh no!" interposed Miss Acton; "she would not be our Lucy if she did."，When she recovered herself in the dim corridor, Elinor, calm and reassuring, was on one side of her, while her other arm was in the firm grip of the cheery Griffin.，The bed was empty--the corpse was gone.，"Thank you, Dr. Moore! I hate the very ground you walk on, and I'll attend to those night-clothes myself to-morrow," I answered, and I sailed out of that surgery and down the path toward my own house beyond his hedge. But I carried this book tight in my hand, and I made up my mind that I would do it all if it killed me. I would show him I could be faithful—to whom I would decide later on. But I hadn't read far into this book when I committed myself to myself like that!“Well, some were half-rotten, and you said yourself that we might eat”—

It was late afternoon when Billy stepped into his punt and with swift, strong strokes sent it skimming toward the duck-ponds. At the point where the shore curved abruptly he lifted his hat and waved to the man and girl watching him from the pier.,As faint they die along the distant shores;,I went.,"Watch out!" warned Billy, grasping him by the arm and jerking him to one side, "that struck elm is goin' to fall." A rainbow of flame flashed close before the boys, as the stricken tree crashed across the path, hurling forth a shower of sparks as it came to earth. Then inky darkness followed and from the black canopy which a moment ago had seemed to touch the tree tops the rain fell in torrents.,“Well, you are early enough I hope. I want to say this much, Johnny Blossom, that I won’t have it on my conscience that you should eat any half-rotten apples—and there are usually a good many half-rotten of this kind—but those that are cracked or bruised you may have, for they won’t keep anyway.”,Old Greyquill, trudging on busy in thought with Mr Lawrence's debt, was moved by some idea of the man to look behind him. Mr Lawrence had disappeared. Quite discernible from where Greyquill stood was the sheet of paper Lawrence had let fall. Old Greyquill stopped, peered, reflected that it might be a letter that he himself had unconsciously been toying with and had dropped, or that in some other way had let fall from his pocket. He retraced the few steps that lay between and picked it up, and proceeded with it in one hand, whilst with the other he fumbled for his spectacle-case.,Supper passed. Edith went to church, Billy to keep an appointment with his teacher; and the spring twilight settled down over the room. Mrs. Bennett knew this would be a trying hour, and hastened her work, inventing some light task for May Nell; hastened also the errand to her own room. Yet though she was gone but a moment, on returning a sob greeted her from the cuddled heap on the couch.,"Oh yes," said a voice.,Mr. Darling is a flaxen-haired young gentleman of about four-and-twenty, with an open and ingenuous countenance, and a disposition cheerful to the last degree. He is positively beaming with youth and good spirits, and takes no pains whatever to suppress the latter; indeed, if so sweet-tempered a youth could be said to have a fault, it lies in his inability to hold his tongue. Talk he must, so talk he does,—anywhere and everywhere, and under all circumstances.,"It is a very late hour for any one to be on the public road," says Lady Rodney, unpleasantly, quite forgetting that people, as a rule, do not go abroad in pale-blue satin gowns, and that therefore some time must have elapsed between Mona's return from her walk and the donning of her present attire. And so she overreaches herself, as clever people will do, at times.,This time Paul was for some minutes in the berth. He came out, leaving the door unlocked as ordered, though shut, and stood beside Mr Lawrence to make his report.,“Can he mean ‘prodigy,’ do you think, May Nell?” Edith’s eyes were mischievous..