royal xmas card 2023

royal xmas card 2023 "Of course; I can quite understand that after what has passed you could "I am glad to see you, major," said she, holding out her hand. "You have saved me the trouble of a journey, as I was on my way to your house.",“Oh, I s’pose she can, only a fellow doesn’t expect it of her. How came you out here? I thought you’d be watching for refugees.”,The table was quickly covered with luxurious provisions, and orders were given that the duke's people should be admitted, and taken care of. He was regaled with a variety of the finest wines, and at length, highly elevated by monastic hospitality, he retired to the apartment allotted him, leaving the Superior in a condition which precluded all ceremony.,Towards the close of day Madame de Menon arrived at a small village situated among the mountains, where she purposed to pass the night. The evening was remarkably fine, and the romantic beauty of the surrounding scenery invited her to walk. She followed the windings of a stream, which was lost at some distance amongst luxuriant groves of chesnut. The rich colouring of evening glowed through the dark foliage, which spreading a pensive gloom around, offered a scene congenial to the present temper of her mind, and she entered the shades. Her thoughts, affected by the surrounding objects, gradually sunk into a pleasing and complacent melancholy, and she was insensibly led on. She still followed the course of the stream to where the deep shades retired, and the scene again opening to day, yielded to her a view so various and sublime, that she paused in thrilling and delightful wonder. A group of wild and grotesque rocks rose in a semicircular form, and their fantastic shapes exhibited Nature in her most sublime and striking attitudes. Here her vast magnificence elevated the mind of the beholder to enthusiasm. Fancy caught the thrilling sensation, and at her touch the towering steeps became shaded with unreal glooms; the caves more darkly frowned—the projecting cliffs assumed a more terrific aspect, and the wild overhanging shrubs waved to the gale in deeper murmurs. The scene inspired madame with reverential awe, and her thoughts involuntarily rose, 'from Nature up to Nature's God.' The last dying gleams of day tinted the rocks and shone upon the waters, which retired through a rugged channel and were lost afar among the receding cliffs. While she listened to their distant murmur, a voice of liquid and melodious sweetness arose from among the rocks; it sung an air, whose melancholy expression awakened all her attention, and captivated her heart. The tones swelled and died faintly away among the clear, yet languishing echoes which the rocks repeated with an effect like that of enchantment. Madame looked around in search of the sweet warbler, and observed at some distance a peasant girl seated on a small projection of the rock, overshadowed by drooping sycamores. She moved slowly towards the spot, which she had almost reached, when the sound of her steps startled and silenced the syren, who, on perceiving a stranger, arose in an attitude to depart. The voice of madame arrested her, and she approached. Language cannot paint the sensation of madame, when in the disguise of a peasant girl, she distinguished the features of Julia, whose eyes lighted up with sudden recollection, and who sunk into her arms overcome with joy. When their first emotions were subsided, and Julia had received answers to her enquiries concerning Ferdinand and Emilia, she led madame to the place of her concealment. This was a solitary cottage, in a close valley surrounded by mountains, whose cliffs appeared wholly inaccessible to mortal foot. The deep solitude of the scene dissipated at once madame's wonder that Julia had so long remained undiscovered, and excited surprize how she had been able to explore a spot thus deeply sequestered; but madame observed with extreme concern, that the countenance of Julia no longer wore the smile of health and gaiety. Her fine features had received the impressions not only of melancholy, but of grief. Madame sighed as she gazed, and read too plainly the cause of the change. Julia understood that sigh, and answered it with her tears. She pressed the hand of madame in mournful silence to her lips, and her cheeks were suffused with a crimson glow. At length, recovering herself, 'I have much, my dear madam, to tell,' said she, 'and much to explain, 'ere you will admit me again to that esteem of which I was once so justly proud. I had no resource from misery, but in flight; and of that I could not make you a confidant, without meanly involving you in its disgrace.'—'Say no more, my love, on the subject,' replied madame; 'with respect to myself, I admired your conduct, and felt severely for your situation. Rather let me hear by what means you effected your escape, and what has since be fallen you.'—Julia paused a moment, as if to stifle her rising emotion, and then commenced her narrative.,"Oh, well," said Kŭt-o-yĭs´, "you can go and breed snakes so there will be more. The people will not be afraid of little snakes."，“And what did you see?”，For a moment Bob thought he had won, for there was a look in his former chum’s eyes as if he was struggling to express something he could not say aloud. But Jerry’s words belied the message of his eyes.，“You go down into it, then?” asked Bob.It is a very handsome picture, and Geoffrey duly admires it; then it is returned to its place, and Mona, opening the drawer next to it, shows him some exquisite ferns dried and gummed on paper.

While everybody was occupied with the pleasures of the hunt, she gave rein to her horses, encouraged them with voice and whip, and soon their quickened pace became a gallop; then, taking the bit between their teeth, they flew along at such a speed, that the chariot seemed borne by the winds, and the eye could scarcely follow it. Too late the poor Queen repented of her rashness: "What could I have been thinking of?" she said. "How could I have imagined that I should be able to control such wild and fiery horses? Alas! what will become of me? What would the King do if he knew the great danger I am in, he who loves me so dearly, and who only sent me away that I might be in greater safety! This is my gratitude for his tender care!" The air resounded with her piteous lamentations; she invoked Heaven, she called the fairies to her assistance, but it seemed that all the powers had abandoned her. The chariot was overthrown; she had not sufficient strength to jump quickly enough to the ground, and her foot was caught between the wheel and the axle-tree; it was only by a miracle she was saved.,“My feet’s purty well jolted up inter my head,” cried the uncomfortable rider. But Betty insisted on his getting full value for his money, and dared him to descend until the round of the arena had been completed.,"Oh, hang Dido!" cried Maurice, vigorously. "I wish she would mind her own business.",In that—that—trousseau Madame Rene had made me there was one, what she called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the cheque it called for. It was of lawn as transparent as a cobweb, real lace and tiny delicious incrustations of embroidery. It fitted in lines that melted into curves, had enticements in the shape of a long sash and a dazzling breast-knot of shimmery blue, the colour of my eyes, and I looked new-born in it.,"You foolish child," he said in the deepest voice I almost ever heard him use. "You are just a lovely perfect flower, but if you will be happier to have Alfred Bennett come and find you as slim as a scarlet runner, I can show you how to do it. Will you do just as I tell you?","But why?" says Mona.,“Now hold his head between your hands and tell him not to touch me.”,The unstinted praise of the children in the operetta, the aftermath of buzz about the “show” at school,—this excitement lasted for a day or so; but on this lowering Sunday tired nature put in a claim for her own; and relaxed nerves were irritably near the surface.,"Who, then?","And how much more?" cried the Admiral, with a flush in his cheek, and with that expression of triumph and pride which lighted up the eyes of men in those days when they pronounced the magic name of Nelson. "I[Pg 9] should like, I should much like to meet him, to see him, to grasp his hand, for a minute only before my windlass is manned for the next world.",In silence they passed on through the upland gowned in hazy, golden spray. At the height of land they paused to look down across the sweeping country below them. Then blue eyes sought grey and hand in hand, with a new glad vista of life opening before them, they went on into the valley.,At the dawn of day madame arose. Her servants, who were hired for the journey, were strangers to Julia: from them, therefore, she had nothing to apprehend. She reached the cottage before sunrise, having left her people at some little distance. Her heart foreboded evil, when, on knocking at the door, no answer was returned. She knocked again, and still all was silent. Through the casement she could discover no object, amidst the grey obscurity of the dawn. She now opened the door, and, to her inexpressible surprise and distress, found the cottage empty. She proceeded to a small inner room, where lay a part of Julia's apparel. The bed had no appearance of having being slept in, and every moment served to heighten and confirm her apprehensions. While she pursued the search, she suddenly heard the trampling of feet at the cottage door, and presently after some people entered. Her fears for Julia now yielded to those for her own safety, and she was undetermined whether to discover herself, or remain in her present situation, when she was relieved from her irresolution by the appearance of Julia..