Ballysbreeze

Ballysbreeze shore flies thro’ the maine.” —_The Fairie Queen_. "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.,The child reared without pets was delighted with the animal life about her; the cats, old Bouncer, the white chickens, and pigeons cooing in the loft.,Nell looked toward the morning-glory garden and there she saw Betty kneeling in the moonlight. Jethro was sitting up on his hind legs beside the little figure, holding his paws before him. The moonlight fell on his penitential white body, on the stiff braids of the sorrowful and contrite Betty, and lighted up the bright yellow nasturtiums that filled the air with their pungent odor. The morning-glory leaves gleamed in the pure white light.,"I quite agree with you," said David, simply, and, turning to Isabella, he took her gently by the hand. "Come, Miss Dallas. This is no place for you.",So Billy watched her passing like a ray of soft light across the valley and around the golden curve of the road. Then with his arms on the bridge-rail, his eyes gazing deep into the amber depths of the water, he lived anew every moment of her nearness, until the hoarse, joyful cry of a crow broke in on his reverie. Croaker, having grown lonely, had come down to meet him.，"I am taking too much for granted," muttered Major Jen, passing his hand across his brow, "Maurice may not have been killed after all. It is Etwald and his horrible prophecies which have put the idea into my head. Let me have a look at the poor lad's body."，“Well, we’ll take her,” said Olaf.，"All right then. Now listen. This mornin' I tied my Sunday clothes up an' throwed 'em out our winder. Then I got up an' sneaked 'em over to the menagerie. I'm goin' to wear 'em to school. Never you mind why, it's none of your business. When I blow into school this mornin' dressed to kill I don't want you to look too darned surprised, that's all. Now if you'll keep your mouth shut tight about that I promise not to let my witch-coon an' witch-crow eat you while you sleep; an' I'll tell you what else I'll do, I'll give you my tart an' my doughnut. Is it a bargain?""Because—I prefer staying here."

"I assure you, sir," said Mr Lawrence, with a smile which added a freshness to his beauty by that light, "that I have no idea of taking command of your ship with a view to a French prison.",He was Mr Walter Lawrence, a son of Admiral Lawrence, and down to a recent period a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was something over thirty years of age, but drink, dissipation, the hard life of the sea and some fever which had got into his blood and proved intermittent, had worked in his face like time, and he might have passed for any age between thirty-five and forty-five. Nevertheless he was an extremely handsome man, of the classic Greek type in lineament, but improved, at least to the British eye, by the Saxon colouring of hair, skin, and eyes. His teeth were extraordinarily white and good for a sailor who had lived on gun-room fare in times when the ship's biscuit was flint, and the peas which rolled about in the discoloured hot water called soup, fit only for loading a blunderbuss with to shoot men dead. His eyes told their tale of drink, but they were large and fine and spirited; his light brown hair, according to the fashion of[Pg 39] the age, was combed down his back and lay in a rope-shaped tail there. He wore a wide-brimmed round hat, and his attire, a little the worse for wear, consisted of a blue coat, white waistcoat, sage-green kerseymere breeches, and, needless to say, the cravat was high and full. He stood about six feet, his figure was extremely well proportioned, and in addition to these merits his carriage had the easy elegance which the flow of the billow and the heave of the deck infuse into all human figures not radically vile and deformed. His voice was soft, winning, and somewhat plaintive, and no man, whether on or off the stage, not even Incledon, sang a song with more exquisite feeling and sweeter sincerity of passion.,"But will Mr Lawrence make for Rio," said Captain Weaver, "when he understands by the Aurora chasing that you have found out his port of destination?",Johnny was gulping his soup with great haste.,"We must take our chance," said Captain Acton to Weaver, "and end our doubts in the only possible way. See that our ensign blows clear for the eyes aboard of her.",He is, for instance, surprised, and indeed somewhat relieved, when he discovers that the drivers of the jaunting-cars that take him on his shooting-expeditions are not all modern Joe Millers, and do not let off witty remarks, like bombshells, every two minutes.,“I think you’ve broke my neck, kid,” he said, feebly, as quaking Billy helped him to his feet.,Captain Acton walked into his house and sought his sister, whom he found alone in the dining-room. She was seated on a high-backed chair knitting. Her own and Lucy's dog lay at her feet. She started at the entrance of Captain Acton, dropped her knitting in her lap, and half rose at her brother, clutching the arms of the chair.,Suddenly a little before eleven o'clock in the forenoon the deck was hailed from aloft,[Pg 342] and a sail reported three points on the weather-bow. She came out of the thickness like one of the heads of seas, in a shining light of canvas; she was sailing large; she showed herself as an iceberg leaps from the snowstorm of the Antarctic ocean. A brig-of-war with foam to the hawse pipes, and the white band along her side broken by guns!,"My poor lads," said he, in a voice full of pathos. "First one and then the other--to lose them both in this awful fashion.",Patricia looked after her with loving pride. "How pretty she is, and how clever," she thought tenderly. "And the best part of it is that she doesn't know what an adorable dear she is. I hope she gets an honorable mention, even if she can't hit the prize. She deserves a lot of good times, after all those lean years when she took such good care of us.",And yet there was something sad, too, at Tellef’s house, for Tellef’s grandmother was blind. Just think! When she went out of doors she had to keep her hand on the house and walk that way, going round and round it; and that looked so queer. Sometimes she would sit right down on the grass and cry because she could not see; and somehow it seemed especially sad that she should cry with those sightless eyes..