West Town Farm

West Town Farm Register and receive 188K And lady-smocks all silver white,,"It was more than a 'surprise.' That is a mild word," says Lady Rodney. She is looking at him, is telling herself what a goodly son he is, so tall and strong and bright and handsome. He might have married almost any one! And now—now——? No, she cannot forgive. "It was, and must always be, a lasting grief," she goes on, in a low tone.,"Yes, we have indeed," says the same sweet voice again, which is the merriest and softest voice imaginable, "and in very good time too, as it seems. Nolly and I have been here for fully five minutes, and have been so delighted with what we have seen that we positively could not stir. Dear Lady Rodney, how d'ye do?","Bonuvs," repeats Mona, a little louder, at which Lady Rodney sinks into a chair, as though utterly overcome. Nolly and Geoffrey are convulsed with laughter. Doatie is vainly endeavoring to keep them in order.,He handles the gun again menacingly. Mona, though still apparently calm, whitens perceptibly beneath the cold penetrating rays of the "pale-faced moon" that up above in "heaven's ebon vault, studded with stars unutterably bright," looks down upon her perhaps with love and pity.，"He is not strong, you see: a little thing knocks him up, and he is too impressionable for a public career. But you are different."，The moments come and go. The fire is dying out. No sound but that of the falling cinders comes to disturb the stillness that reigns within the library. Mona is vaguely, wondering what the end of it all will be. And then at last the silence is broken. A noise upon the gravel outside, a quick rush up the balcony steps; some one emerges from the gloom of the night, and comes into the room through the open window. Mona utters a passionate cry of relief and joy. It is Geoffrey!，When she is quite gone, he pulls himself together with a jerk, and draws a heavy sigh, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, continues his walk."I mean," says Mona, flushing a vivid scarlet, "is she stern?"

"But surely until then Mona may lay claim to the title," says Violet, quickly.,"I don't know, sir. I never was abroad before, an' I'm dead bate now, an' the bag's like lead.","Come, then," she says, slowly, "if you will. Though I am not afraid. Why should I be? Do you forget that I am one of themselves? My father and I belong to the people.","Why do you accuse me of such a desire?" asks he, paling beneath her indignation, and losing courage because of the unshed tears that are gleaming in her eyes.,His breath grows fainter, his eyelids close.,"Quite too late," acquiesces his mother, meaningly. "It is, to say the least of it, very strange, very unseemly. Out at this hour, and alone,—if, indeed, she is alone!","It is," replies he, absently. Then, below his breath, "and well worth fighting for.",Later on, when they open the paper that had been given by the dead man into the keeping of Dr. Bland, and which proves to be his will, duly signed and witnessed by the gamekeeper and his son, they find he has left to Mona all of which he died possessed. It amounts to about two thousand a year; of which one thousand is to come to her at once, the other on the death of his mother.,The birds, as though once more led by the balmy mildness of the day into the belief that summer has not yet forsaken them, are singing in the topmost branches of the trees, from which, with every passing breeze, the leaves fall lightly.,"Ask any one you like,—any one, I mean, that is not quite impossible," says Nicholas.,"No, darling, no; I am afraid not," he says, very gently. But for the poor child's tender earnestness and good faith, he could almost have felt some faint amusement; but this offering of hers is to him a sacred thing, and to treat her words as a jest is a thought far from him. Indeed, to give wilful offence to any one, by either word or action, would be very foreign to his nature. For if "he is gentil that doth gentil dedis" be true, Rodney to his finger-tips is gentleman indeed.,To Ridgway, the under-gardener, he willed three hundred pounds, "as some small compensation for the evil done to him," so runs the document, written in a distinct but trembling hand. And then follow one or two bequests to those friends he had left in Australia and some to the few from whom he had received kindness in colder England..