United States or Sierra Leone ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
So one day she was stealing across the yard, with a starched dressing-jacket of her mistress's carefully poised on her outspread fingers . . . some one suddenly grasped her vigorously by the elbow; she turned round and fairly screamed; behind her stood Gerasim. With a foolish smile, making inarticulate caressing grunts, he held out to her a gingerbread cock with gold tinsel on his tail and wings.
His conversation was lively; his manners, to those whom he desired to please, were even caressing. No man could flatter with more delicacy. No man succeeded more completely in inspiring those who approached him with vague hopes of some great advantage from his kindness. But under this fair exterior he was a tyrant, suspicious, disdainful, and malevolent.
I ask nothing at all in return, simply to make you happy, and to teach you the blessed magic which now you scorn. Faith! It's the greatest game in the world, Lady Una; and it only takes two players, dear, only two players!" There was a subtle, caressing quality in his voice. His masked face was bending close to hers. She felt trapped and helpless, but she forced herself to stand her ground.
When we were saying good by an old gentleman who sat next him was particularly sympathetic, and you should have seen how indignantly Ascott replied, "It's only my aunt!" Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow vanished from her face, as Hilary had meant it should. She only said, caressing her, "Well, my pet, never mind. I hope you will have a real sweetheart some day."
At that hour of night Nature was dead; shadows hung the whitewashed walls with crape; a chill fell upon his shoulders like a salutary penance-shirt. He could now wholly surrender himself to the supremest love, without fear of any flickering ray of light, any caressing breeze or scent, any buzzing of an insect's wing disturbing him amidst the delight of loving.
But no reasoning could efface that impression of uneasiness and discontent which had seized him when he had beheld Farandal talking and smiling like an accepted suitor, caressing with his glances the fair face of the young girl.
Did you think he was angry with his own precious child?" and as he spoke he drew Jennie to his bosom and held her there while he murmured constantly in tones of endearment, "Call me father, my pet child; nobody shall take her away again; little Jennie, dear little Jennie!" and he looked around with a sort of menacing air, as if some one was near who would seek to rob him of his treasure, and then smiled fondly on the young girl, caressing her with the deepest tenderness.
She could still calm him and reassure him: she had only to say to him that she loved him; that she would soon return to Paris; that he should renounce the foolish idea of rejoining her here; that Florence was a village where they would be watched at once. But she would have to write: "I love you." She must quiet him with caressing phrases. She had not the courage to do it.
"His mouth was like iron," she whispered, "but his face was so white in the sunshine. Poor fellow poor fellow," in quite a caressing tone. "But you will be safe with me even Alick shall not know. I wonder if he guesses anything; he only said yesterday that Mr. Herrick was different somehow.
The sea was calling to the earth, calling to her in phrases of eloquent and urgent music, caressing her pebbly shores with winding arms of foam, and showering kisses of wild spray against her rocky bosom. "If I could come to thee! If thou couldst come to me!" was the burden of the waves, the ceaseless craving of the finite for the infinite, which is, and ever shall be, the great chorale of life.
Word Of The Day