QBETS

QBETS It was indeed time, for the squad of rough riders had just started to "This sliding," said the woman, "is very good fun.","Yes, father," said Morning Star, "a young man has come to see you. He is a good young man, for he found some of my things in the trail and did not touch them.",Again she has grown silent, as though oppressed with thought; and he too is mute, but all his mind is crowded with glad anticipations of what the near future is to give him. He has no regrets, no fears. At length, struck by her persistent taciturnity, he says, "What is it, Mona?",Julia could speak but with her tears. A variety of strong and contending emotions struggled at her breast, and suppressed the power of utterance. Ferdinand seconded the proposal of the count. 'It is unnecessary,' my sister, said he, 'to point out the misery which awaits you here. I love you too well tamely to suffer you to be sacrificed to ambition, and to a passion still more hateful. I now glory in calling Hippolitus my friend—let me ere long receive him as a brother. I can give no stronger testimony of my esteem for his character, than in the wish I now express. Believe me he has a heart worthy of your acceptance—a heart noble and expansive as your own.'—'Ah, cease,' said Julia, 'to dwell upon a character of whose worth I am fully sensible. Your kindness and his merit can never be forgotten by her whose misfortunes you have so generously suffered to interest you.' She paused in silent hesitation. A sense of delicacy made her hesitate upon the decision which her heart so warmly prompted. If she fled with Hippolitus, she would avoid one evil, and encounter another. She would escape the dreadful destiny awaiting her, but must, perhaps, sully the purity of that reputation, which was dearer to her than existence. In a mind like hers, exquisitely susceptible of the pride of honor, this fear was able to counteract every other consideration, and to keep her intentions in a state of painful suspense. She sighed deeply, and continued silent. Hippolitus was alarmed by the calm distress which her countenance exhibited. 'O! Julia,' said he, 'relieve me from this dreadful suspense!—speak to me—explain this silence.' She looked mournfully upon him—her lips moved, but no sounds were uttered. As he repeated his question, she waved her hand, and sunk back in her chair. She had not fainted, but continued some time in a state of stupor not less alarming. The importance of the present question, operating upon her mind, already harassed by distress, had produced a temporary suspension of reason. Hippolitus hung over her in an agony not to be described, and Ferdinand vainly repeated her name. At length uttering a deep sigh, she raised herself, and, like one awakened from a dream, gazed around her. Hippolitus thanked God fervently in his heart. 'Tell me but that you are well,' said he, 'and that I may dare to hope, and we will leave you to repose.'—'My sister,' said Ferdinand, 'consult only your own wishes, and leave the rest to me. Suffer a confidence in me to dissipate the doubts with which you are agitated.'—'Ferdinand,' said Julia, emphatically, 'how shall I express the gratitude your kindness has excited?'—'Your gratitude,' said he, 'will be best shown in consulting your own wishes; for be assured, that whatever procures your happiness, will most effectually establish mine. Do not suffer the prejudices of education to render you miserable. Believe me, that a choice which involves the happiness or misery of your whole life, ought to be decided only by yourself.',Once more the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and as darkness grew Mīka´pi came down from where he had been hiding and carefully approached the camp. Now was a time of danger. Now watchers might be hidden anywhere, looking for the approach of enemies, ready to raise a cry to warn the camp. Each bush or clump of rye grass or willow thicket might hide an enemy. Very slowly, looking and listening, Mīka´pi crept around the outskirts of the camp. He made no noise, he did not show himself. Presently he heard some one clear his throat and then a cough, and a little bush moved. Here was a watcher. Could he kill him and get away? He sat and waited to see what would happen, for he knew where his enemy was, but the enemy knew nothing of him. The great moon rose over the eastern prairie and climbed high and began to travel across the sky. Seven Persons swung around and pointed downward. It was about the middle of the night. At length the person in the bush grew tired of watching; he thought no enemy could be near and he rose and stretched out his arms and yawned, but even as he stood an arrow pierced him through, beneath the arms. He gave a loud cry and tried to run, but another arrow struck him, and he fell.，"How do you know that?" asked the major, all on the alert.，“Oh, no; there aren’t any. Billy says so, and he knows. He knows, too, that there are other people here beside the Italians.”，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.It would exceed the bounds of possibility to suppose that any charming girl of great sensibility whose heart was disengaged, whose feelings were fresh and sweet, could nurse for the space of five weeks so fine, manly, and[Pg 448] handsome a gentleman as Mr Lawrence without falling in love with him. This may be true of ninety young ladies in every hundred. But what was Lucy Acton's case? She was secretly but deeply in love with Mr Lawrence when his own overmastering passion for her impelled him into the perpetration of an outrage upon her person, and a criminal offence against her father. She had loved him with a passion deep and concealed in her spirit long before her abduction, and Aunt Caroline had guessed the truth. She had loved him with an increasing fervency, even after she had been cruelly abstracted from her home, when she knew that her kidnapper's intention was to rob her father of his ship, and the freighters of their goods, and the crew of their wages. And never had she loved him so well as when she was feigning madness with the aim of being transhipped and sent home by him, and when at every interview his eyes reposed upon her with adoration in their expression and his bearing towards her was as gentle, appealing, respectful, and dignified as though he was courting her in hours of health and content, with her father's sanction, and under her father's roof.

By two o’clock one bright afternoon in May the school children found it hard to keep their minds concentrated on their lessons. But when their teacher said, “Now, Moses, will you pass the singing books,” a wave of awakened interest perceptibly cleared the atmosphere. Moses promptly proceeded to distribute the geography textbooks.,“But there might be a bad accident if you dropped her.”,"He must be prosecuted before they can hang him," said Captain Acton, whilst the Admiral's regard was fastened upon Lucy's face with such tokens of affectionate gratitude and surprise which rose to a passion of delight as made the worthy, poor old man's jolly, weather-scored, truly British countenance moving to behold. "And who is to prosecute him? I alone am the sufferer. I alone can prosecute. Am I likely to do so? Am I the man to bring my friend's son to the gallows?","And Uncle Brian?" asks Mona, fearfully.,"Had my supper," shouted Billy. He threw the kindling into the wood box and grinned encouragement at Maurice, who had sunk miserably down on a stool.,The next day the sisters went again to the ball, and Cinderella also, but still more splendidly dressed than before. The King's son never left her side, or ceased saying tender things to her. Cinderella found the evening pass very pleasantly, and forgot her godmother's warning, so that she heard the clock begin to strike twelve while still thinking that it was not yet eleven. She rose and fled as lightly as a fawn. The Prince followed her, but could not overtake her. She dropped one of her glass slippers, which the Prince carefully picked up. Cinderella reached home almost breathless, without coach or footmen, and in her shabby clothes, with nothing remaining of her finery but one of her little slippers, the fellow of that which she had dropped. The guards at the palace gate were asked if they had not seen a Princess pass out; they answered that they had seen no one pass but a poorly-dressed girl, who had more the appearance of a peasant than of a lady. When the two sisters returned from the ball, Cinderella asked them if they had been as much entertained as before, and if the beautiful lady had been present. They said yes, but that she had fled as soon as it had struck twelve, and in such haste, that she had dropped one of her little glass slippers, the prettiest in the world; that the King's son had picked it up, and had done nothing but gaze upon it during the remainder of the evening; and that, undoubtedly, he was very much in love with the beautiful person to whom the little slipper belonged. They spoke the truth; for a few days afterwards the King's son caused it to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet that he would marry her whose foot would exactly fit the slipper. They began by trying it on the princesses, then on the duchesses, and so on throughout the Court; but in vain. It was taken to the two sisters, who did their utmost to force one of their feet into the slipper, but they could not manage to do so. Cinderella, who was looking on, and who recognised the slipper, said laughingly, "Let me see if it will not fit me." Her sisters began to laugh and ridicule her. The gentleman of the Court who had been entrusted to try the slipper, having looked attentively at Cinderella, and seeing that she was very beautiful, said that it was only fair that her request should be granted, as he had received orders to try the slipper on all maidens, without exception. He made Cinderella sit down, and putting the slipper to her little foot, he saw it slip on easily and fit like wax. Great was the astonishment of the two sisters, but it was still greater when Cinderella took the other little slipper out of her pocket and put it on her other foot. At that moment the godmother appeared, who giving a tap with her wand to Cinderella's clothes, they became still more magnificent than those she had worn before.,One brilliant Sunday Mr. Wells paced up and down in the sunshine before his little church. An ardent lover of nature he was admiring the beautiful shades of the foliage on either hand and the gorgeous masses of golden-rod that lifted feathery heads to the sun. Presently seeing two or three vehicles approaching he retired into the church.,"What you talkin' 'bout, Bill? What thing? Who's it been clawin'? Hurry up, tell me.",“My religion’s purty well wartered now, I guess,” said Moses, sheepishly, to Clarence, who met him at the end of the fateful corridor. That youth had followed his country friend from the Sunday-school hall, but not in time to direct his erring steps.,They had proceeded about half a mile, when they heard a sudden shout of voices echoed from among the hills behind them; and looking back perceived faintly through the dusk a party of men on horseback making towards them. As they drew nearer, the words they spoke were distinguishable, and Julia heard her own name sounded. Shocked at this circumstance, she had now no doubt that she was discovered by a party of her father's people, and she fled with Hippolitus along the valley. The pursuers, however, were almost come up with them, when they reached the mouth of a cavern, into which she ran for concealment. Hippolitus drew his sword; and awaiting his enemies, stood to defend the entrance.,“Gee! Betty,” laughed the boy, “yer eyes look orful yet, this is the fust good shake my sides hev felt to-day, it’s jist been ’orrible the way Mar was jawred.”,In the second dog-watch the crew were mustered aft and divided into watches. It was tolerably certain that down to this moment no hint had found its way amongst them that their course would presently be for any other port in the world than Kingston..