Joker’s Charms - Xmas

Joker’s Charms - Xmas CHAPTER XXXI. Her heart beat with apprehensions, which reason could not justify. Madame rose, and enquiring who was there, was answered by the voice of Ferdinand. The door was cheerfully opened. They drew their chairs round him, and endeavoured to pass the time in conversation; but fear and expectation attracted all their thoughts to one subject, and madame alone preserved her composure. The hour was now come when the sounds had been heard the preceding night, and every ear was given to attention. All, however, remained quiet, and the night passed without any new alarm.,"A poison-wand!" echoed Etwald, a sudden light showing in his cold eyes. "I never heard of such a thing.",Maurice scratched his head thoughtfully. "Say, you know a lot about snakes an' things, don't you?" he said admiringly.,“Mother,” he resumed, “I know I must freeze to some sort of business, and that mighty soon, too. But a preacher—why, he can’t be like anybody. He never has any fun.”,“Oh, we were fighting.”，Whilst she was busy with the hairdressing, they said to her, "Cinderella, should you be very glad to go to the ball?"，"No, I'm willin' to shake." Scroggie extended his hand.，When the feasting was over, there was a call for silence. It came from Father, who stood again at the top of the marble steps and was evidently going to make a speech. All the children flocked together near the steps, in the sunshine, and hundreds of childish faces were upturned towards the speaker. Behind Father, on the veranda, at the windows, and in the doorways stood John’s aged friends, among them Katrina in her bright red dress and Jeremias the wood-cutter in the mayor’s light coat that was altogether too small for him. Jeremias had been to the Kingthorpe woodshed the first thing, for there was something he understood; but now he had stationed himself behind Father. The crippled child sat on the lowest step, his pockets stuffed full of plums.Yet in this he spoke the truth, echoing Spenser (though unconsciously), where he says,——

The general bath-room is to Geoffrey an abomination; nothing would induce him to enter it. His own bath, and nothing but his own bath, can content him. To have to make uncomfortable haste to be first, or else to await shivering the good pleasure of your next-door neighbor, is according to Mr. Rodney, a hardship too great for human endurance.,THE BENEVOLENT FROG,She presses her hands still closer against her eyes, as though to shut out from her own mind the hatefulness of such a thought. And then, with a fresh effort, she brings herself back once more to the question that lies before her.,For several days Johnny Blossom avoided meeting Tellef, but he saw that Tellef had bought a handsome strong fishing rod, and that he had had fish to take home every single day.,"I never want to set eyes on you again," said Jen, bluntly.,“Oh, Betty,” he begged, “Pease dive me some.”,“Afore I begin weedin’,” she announced, “I b’lieve I’ll make two bouquets, one orl yaller an’ one orl white, an’ some sparrer-grass in both.”,“She’d like fust-rate to come, but Glory be! She’d want ter fetch her pet turkey and Jethro.”,"Oh Willium," she cried, "my heart is breakin'. Oh to think how I misjedged him!","What one of all the animals is the smartest?" the Sun went on. "It is the raven, for he always finds food; he is never hungry. Which one of all the animals is the most to be reverenced? It is the buffalo; of all the animals I like him best. He is for the people; he is your food and your shelter. What part of his body is sacred? It is the tongue; that belongs to me. What else is sacred? Berries. They too are mine. Come with me now and see the world.","Why," answered Captain Weaver, who had had time to think, "the Aurora's copper wants cleaning badly. We shall need to take in more ballast. There are the sails to bend and a lot to be seen to aloft; stores to be shipped, and dozens of other matters to be attended to, gentlemen. We're not a Naval dockyard down on the wharves. We can't rig out a dismantled frigate and fill her with men with all her artillery in place and send her to sea in twenty-four hours, and there may be some[Pg 228] little difficulty as to a few of the crew. Two or three of them who are married will want a longer spell ashore than this time gives them. If so, and I reckon upon it, I shall need others.",She desired to retire for a time to some obscure convent, there to await the issue of the event, which at present involved her in perplexity and sorrow..