Betacular

Betacular BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER V. (_Razor Back_).—Of this whale little is "Who is in command of this ship?" she enquired in a low, harsh voice, almost a whisper. "Whoever he is," she rattled on, "I am his prisoner. I am being carried away into captivity, I who am a princess, though soon to be clothed in tatters. If you are a man with a heart have mercy upon me, and turn this ship and steer me home!","It was one of Nolly's good things," he says, genially. "And you know what he is capable of when he likes! It was funny to the last degree,—calculated to set any 'table in a roar.'—Give it to us again, Nolly—it bears repeating.—Ask him to tell it to you, Violet.",Like little mice, stole in and out,,“Perhaps I can poke her out with a stick,” suggested Johnny. But not a stick could they find, though they looked all around. In the sail-boat, however, there was the finest kind of a boat-hook.,"I hope they won't be too hard on me," she said slowly. "I'd be sorry to begin my term with anything that left the least bitter taste. Everything here is so free-spirited and high-minded that I want it to keep on being so for me always."，"I have to put him at the end of the table because he is my kinsman and the only host I've got at present, Aunt Bettie," I said regretfully. I always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my relationship on Aunt Bettie, so that she won't notice our friendliness.，"I'm not so sure of that," retorted Maurice; "I love Isabella, and come what may I intend to make her my wife."，At the word "trust" she lifts her eyes and regards him somewhat steadfastly. It is a short look, yet a very long one, and tells more than she knows. Even while it lasts he swears to himself an oath that he never to his life's end breaks.Baffled, yet knowing he had expected it, he ran this way and that, peering round each corner, scanning the bare, high walls to see if by chance some window had been left unbarred. Not one less than a dozen feet from the ground! He ran back to the door, was almost tempted to shake it, yet knew that would be a foolish trick; some one might be within guarding May Nell; might at the first noise still more securely hide her,—they said there were fearfully deep and dark cellars under that house! She might come to—to some dreadful harm!

She was dressed, of course, in the costume in which she had been kidnapped, and like the sailors she looked very much the worse for wear and tear. Her jockey-shaped hat, so modish and even rakish when purchased, had fallen into a confusion of headgear, a something that might have wanted a name had it been found on the highway. Her hair looked wild in the inartistic dressing it suffered from. Her rich and characteristic bloom had faded, and what lingered was but[Pg 360] as a delicate faint flush of expiring sunset. But even as she stood, not the most cynical and aspish of her own sex would have challenged her beauty, the charms of her figure, the melting sweetness of her eyes on whose dark-brown irids the white lids, rich in eyelash, reposed. Those eyes were wet now, and tears were upon her cheeks.,Oh, they didn’t know anything about the trouble with Bob, and he didn’t dare to say a word about the racing or anything.,“If you want to play ball with us in the afternoons, you may,” said Otto.,"Set down there an' keep still as a mouse till I get back," he admonished. "I won't be long.",A miller bequeathed to his three sons all he possessed of worldly goods, which consisted only of his Mill, his Ass, and his Cat. It did not take long to divide the property, and neither notary nor attorney was called in; they would soon have eaten up the poor little patrimony. The eldest son had the Mill; the second son, the Ass; and the youngest had nothing but the Cat.,As to Jack and Violet, they have grown of late into a sort of moral puzzle that nobody can solve. For months they have been gazing at and talking to each other, have apparently seen nothing but each other, no matter how many others may be present; and yet it is evident that no understanding exists between them, and that no formal engagement has been arrived at.,"There is a set of people whom I cannot bear," says Chalmers, "the pinks of fashionable propriety, whose every word is precise, and whose every movement is unexceptionable, but who, though versed in all the categories of polite behavior, have not a particle of soul or cordiality about them.","I promise you faithfully," says Mona.,"Yes," agreed Wilson, "I guess maybe he is. But, Deacon, I don't know what their game is; wish I did.",The hall and corridor were dim and the circle of lights above the model stand was twinkling brightly when Patricia peeped in at the crack of the door during the first rest.,"Well, so I do love him. And just then it was of him I was thinking: when I looked up to the sky his words came back to me. You remember what he says about the moon rising 'over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the meadows,' and how,—,Feather-in-the-Wind, while preserving his customary dignity, was genuinely sorry to see him go..