AtTheRaces Results

AtTheRaces Results abandoned boat; but little Carmencita had kept tight hold of it. Possessed with this thought,—which drowns all others,—he clasps his hands behind his back and saunters to the window. "Shall he go and meet Mona and learn the truth at once? Better not, perhaps; she is such a clever child that it is as well to let her achieve victory without succor of any sort.",“Captain Wendell already had promised to be on hand for to-morrow night. It was by his help that we expected to hold the lid on. But to get back to Jerry: He had desperate little time to get to the Fort and bring the soldiers back. It was a wonderful ride, but he made it. I only joined the troop on the trail. Jerry had ridden ahead to stop Miguel from blowing up the cofferdam.”,Maurice's white face slowly expanded in a grin. He glanced in the direction of his mother, then held out his hand to the crow with a lowspoken, "Come Croaker, ol' feller.",In being mad, which none but madmen know.',Judith shrugged uneasily.，"And you've found the condition too difficult; isn't that so?" he asked.，"Ah!" said Sarby, walking toward the door, "you will know the reason when you learn the truth!"，Battersea drew back and began to whimper again."Certainly, my good woman," she replied, and the beautiful girl at once stooped and rinsed out the jug, and then, filling it with water from the clearest part of the spring, she held it up to the woman, continuing to support the jug, that she might drink with greater comfort. Having drunk, the woman said to her, "You are so beautiful, so good and kind, that I cannot refrain from conferring a gift upon you," for she was really a fairy, who had taken the form of a poor village woman, in order to see how far the girl's kind-heartedness would go. "This gift I make you," continued the fairy, "that with every word you speak, either a flower or a precious stone will fall from your mouth."

"I will—when I find it," returns she, with an irrepressible glance, full of native but innocent coquetry, from her beautiful eyes.,François served them deftly, while still attending to all the other tables, and Patricia, in the intervals of merry chatter, wondered at the innumerable bits of respectful conversation he managed to supply his patrons in addition to his very satisfactory table service, and she said so to Bruce, just as the dessert had been placed and François had withdrawn to a party of newcomers.,CHAPTER XXXVIII.,Was not May Nell safe? Almost recovered from her fright and hours of imprisonment? Was not the town ringing with her courage and quaint sayings? For she had told her story more than once; and when she came to the place where she said, “And I thought, ‘God can see me all the time; if He means for me to suffer awfully I must have an awful lot of courage; I must ask Him for it.’ So I did, and I said ‘Now I lay me,’ and lay down on the bed so I could hear God speak—you know you can hear better lying down—and I waited—”,An oldish looking man wished Johnny to go below with him, and naturally Johnny did not need to be asked twice, even by signs! It was wonderful down there. He had never imagined there could be anything so fine on the dirty coal steamer; and just think! some crackers were brought out, and then if that funny man didn’t set a whole jar of preserves before him, too, and give him a spoon! My, oh, my! Mother ought to see him now, eating with a big spoon right from the preserve jar!,She had no intention of crossing the river by the ferry to gain the pier. When Mr Lawrence had advanced well ahead, she intended to resume the road he was taking and go home. Her mind, however, was occupied by him, and yonder, lying at the wharves, was the Minorca, of which she understood he was to receive the[Pg 47] command. She walked towards the vessel; she supplied an object for the little excursion, and the walk would give Mr Lawrence time enough to put the necessary distance between them. The river widened rapidly when it passed under the bridge. The smooth water at the mouth of it reflected the chequered band of the Saucy brig-of-war. Two or three smacks were hoisting their coloured canvas and sailing out to sea. On either hand the banks of the ravine sloped, well dressed in shrubs and wood, and here and there stood a little house. Some small boats lay in black specks away out between the two Heads fishing. Business was not very brisk in the Harbour just then, and the wharves were quiet. They were three; each of well-pitched timber long enough to supply berths stem and stern to two or three small vessels apiece. They were backed by a row of warehouses, some of which were Captain Acton's, and in these were stowed the rum, sugar, and tobacco which his two ships brought from the West Indies.,She shivered. "Nothin' out'a the ordinary. What's that limb allars doin' to scare the daylights clean outa me an' the neighbors? If you'd spend a little more of your spare time in the house with your wife an' less in the barn with your precious stock you wouldn't need to be askin' what he's been adoin'. But I'll tell you what he did only this evenin' afore you come home from changin' words with Cobin Keeler.,"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.,"Going away, and where, may I ask?",He lays his hands lightly on her arm, yet his touch seems to burn through her gown into her very flesh. He stoops towards her.,Conversation may be divided into two classes—the familiar and the sentimental. It is the province of the familiar, to diffuse cheerfulness and ease—to open the heart of man to man, and to beam a temperate sunshine upon the mind.—Nature and art must conspire to render us susceptible of the charms, and to qualify us for the practice of the second class of conversation, here termed sentimental, and in which Madame de Menon particularly excelled. To good sense, lively feeling, and natural delicacy of taste, must be united an expansion of mind, and a refinement of thought, which is the result of high cultivation. To render this sort of conversation irresistibly attractive, a knowledge of the world is requisite, and that enchanting case, that elegance of manner, which is to be acquired only by frequenting the higher circles of polished life. In sentimental conversation, subjects interesting to the heart, and to the imagination, are brought forward; they are discussed in a kind of sportive way, with animation and refinement, and are never continued longer than politeness allows. Here fancy flourishes,—the sensibilities expand—and wit, guided by delicacy and embellished by taste—points to the heart.,Johnny Blossom also was indignant over the pilot’s interference with their fine plan for feeding the goat. But it wasn’t the stupidest thing in the world to tie the goat’s legs together. In the afternoon they would do that, and Pilot Stiansen needn’t trouble himself any more over their affairs..