Santa’s Wild Night chapter 1

Santa’s Wild Night chapter 1 "Salome!" exclaimed Mrs. Tracy, her tone sharp with indignation. "How “Sit here beside me,” said Uncle Isaac. “Thank you very much for this beautiful Christmas present.” The frame stood on a table near the bed.,He went on, a little cautiously now, and shortly came in view of the “Ha’nt,” a sinister though imposing house, built of cut stone, close against the face of the most picturesque mountain of the range, bounding Vina Valley. The windows were curtained with cobwebs and dust. For years the wide front door had been nailed up with the same sun-bleached boards; and “Keep out!” spoke from every gray splinter.,"Perhaps Lady Rodney would not like it.","It is like a romaunt of the earlier and purer days of chivalry," goes on Lady Lilias, in her most prosy tone. "Alas! where are they now?" She pauses for an answer to this difficult question, being in her very loftiest strain of high art depression.,"I will, darlin', shurely," says Bridget, who adores the ground she walks on; and then, turning, she leaves her. Mona lays her hand on Geoffrey's arm.，"You don't know!" rejoined Blue Beard; "I know well enough. You must needs go into the closet. Well, madam, you shall go in again, and take your place among the ladies you saw there."，“He smiles sich a toothy grin,” commented Moses.，Patricia sorted them over rapidly before Elinor had reached the table.Maurice saw well how Isabella had deteriorated under the bad influence of the negress, and he did his best to counteract her insidious morality and morbid teachings. He laughed at Isabella's stories and superstitions, and succeeded in making her ashamed of her weakness in placing faith in such degraded rubbish. While with him Isabella was a bright and laughing girl; quite another sort of being to the grave and nervous creature she was while in the presence of Dido. She felt that if she married Maurice his bright strong nature would save her from a lamentable and melancholy existence; and as all her affections and instincts inclined to the young man, she hoped to become his wife.

The others stared at him, and with the skepticism of thoroughly healthy minds refused to attach much importance to Etwald's mysticism. Jen was the first to speak, and he did so in rather a stiff way, quite different from his usual jovial style of conversation.,"Have you told anybody else about this besides me, Billy?","You girls are angels to wait for me till the very last moment," chatted Elinor, stuffing her things into her locker recklessly. "I hated to run the risk of not going to the station, but, oh, it was worth it!","You can waltz?",“Mrs. Bennett, you must unpack it alone, mamma said.”,"Ma's got the light burnin' an' the strap waitin' fer her little boy," chaffed Billy as they put up the barn-yard bars.,"It is because that black woman distrusts me that you object," he said, when Mrs. Dallas had talked herself hoarse. "I wonder that an English lady, a Christian and an educated person should be dominated by that uncivilized creature.","Yep, we could do that, I s'pose," said Billy, "only—" He frowned and shook his head. "I guess we best not ask either of 'em, Ma. Maurice might hear of it, an' wonder why he wa'n't asked too. He's awful funny that way, you know.","I am talking to you," said Mr Lawrence, with acid contempt, "not to gather your opinion of Captain Acton and of such instructions as he may have given me, but to acquaint you as an officer of this ship with such facts as I collected from Captain Acton's conversation, which must presently become the property of the whole crew. It seems to me,[Pg 245] sir," he continued, looking at his mean companion in his lofty, imperious, flaming way, "that even on the bare hint of the possibility of such a proceeding as I have stated, you are on the side of the crew, you advocate and express the cause of the crew, you anticipate the action which would be ranked as mutiny, and which would certainly cost human lives, unless, indeed, I decide upon a course of my own, by which I mean that if the crew refuse to work this ship to the place named by Captain Acton, I would steer to the nearest port and get rid of the whole of them and replace them by others; and if they refused to help me to navigate the ship to the nearest place, I would hoist a signal of distress and make my helpless situation known to the first man-o'-war that was not French or Spanish that came along.",The room was dark and empty; but the traces of blood were visible on the floor; and Julia, though ignorant of the particular apprehension of Hippolitus, almost swooned at the sight. On quitting the room, they wandered for some time among the ruins, without discovering any thing extraordinary, till, in passing under the arch-way by which Hippolitus had first entered the building, their footsteps returned a deep sound, which convinced them that the ground beneath was hollow. On close examination, they perceived by the light of their torch, a trapdoor, which with some difficulty they lifted, and discovered beneath a narrow flight of steps. They all descended into a low winding passage, where they had not been long, when they heard a trampling of horses above, and a loud and sudden uproar.,"Like a charm to keep off ghosts," laughed Patricia. "Perhaps we ought to cross our fingers, Ju, when we remember to. That might help, too.","And mine, too," said Maurice, hotly. "Isabella is--".