Patti Sky

Patti Sky Download +128K - V5.4.1 CHAPTER XV AGAINST THE FIRE,“Come on Betty, you haven’t had a dance this evening. It isn’t fair for the grownups to have all the fun,” invited Howard Eliot.,“O mother, how can there be joy if life is all work and never any fun?” He took her hand and pressed it against his cheek.,And the shouts that greeted this fiat shook the old barn and made the hens in the hay cackle with fright.,Everything at the dinner table was in keeping to Betty’s eyes, from the translucent china cups to the dainty blown bubbles of confection served with ice-cream; all so fragile that even one of her small brown fingers might crush them. She laughed as she thought of the annihilating effect, should Moses appear. The ices and the angel cake and the concocted kisses of whiteof-egg confirmed in her mind the suspicion that her wonderful holiday was a dream. “So your name is Betty Wopp?”，She put out her hand for the pail but stopped suddenly, for the dog growled; and the next instant the room darkened, and a man stood in the doorway.，“Come here Betty, till I clean yer face. Where is that boy Moses? I know he had a hand in this. Drat him anyhow,” said the incensed Mrs. Wopp.，Before he emerged from the leafy path Billy heard well-known whining, and wondered why the dog didn’t come to meet him. The next instant he saw him straining against his bonds.“Can you drive?” he asked, anxiously, as he unhitched the horse. He noticed with a second sinking feeling that Jimmy’s face twitched with pain, that his right arm hung limp.

“Oh, Lord, she’s orl I got,” he wailed. He hinted that there would be no more light in him, than in Job’s blind eye, should Betty be lost to him.,Mrs. Bennett continued her gentle, even strokes; bent and kissed him softly before replying. “Duty looks narrow only when it opposes inclination, my child. Selfish people hate duty; but those who live the longest and best lives could tell you that every victory duty wins brings an ever-increasing joy.”,“One of the brothers, hurt.”,Flags waved. In spite of Billy all shouted orders at once. The line was as serpentine as Bess’s snakes that she held high and wriggling above her snake-entwined head. Oh, she was a very realistic snake charmer! Buzz crowed and clapped his pudgy little hands; and the Lancasters’ small Chinese boy who pulled the baby’s car almost fell over himself laughing.,“Awfully hard, Billy. Some of them had ‘grief swimming in their eyes.’”,Max furnished the milk. “I haf gif mine cow much sugar to make dot milk sweet for Pilly to-day,” he explained happily to Mrs. Bennett.,“But there aren’t any deer,” the little girl objected. “What will you do for,“A dose of senner tea’ll fix that, my boy,” was Mrs. Wopp’s cheerful rejoinder.,Her wardrobe was a heavy drain on Edith’s purse, yet the young teacher delighted almost as a mother in the dainty garments that won her to extravagance.,“Don’t Job look jist like Mariar Mifsud goin’ to meetin’,” gurgled Betty.,But Jean spoke at once and heartily. “Here’s to our latest addition. May she never be subtracted from us. Already she’s multiplied our joys, yet we hope she’ll not have to divide our woes.”,The pianist walked on the stage as the eyes of Mrs. Wopp and Moses rested on Betty. Howard Eliot had not taken his gaze from Nell Gordon expecting momentarily to catch her glance and to be rewarded by a smile. A smile radiated her fair face, but alas! It was not for him..