United States or Democratic Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Anyway, the eel has the advantage of getting about a bit! Then the smiled faded, and he knelt, because he could not stand the sound of that little sob any longer, and he put out his hand and stroked her hair. "Damaris, darling, it's I Ben!" She stiffened under the shock of the words, and flung her hands over her head. The terrible hour had come!
These Damaris saw, and they worked upon her strangely, awakening an emotion of almost painful tenderness, as at sight of decorations pathetically fond, playfully child-like and ingenuous. While, as he bent over her, she also became aware of a freshness, a salt sweetness as of the ocean and the great vacant spaces where all the winds of the world blow keen and free.
For on reaching the head of the shallow sandy gully opening on the tide, where the flat-bottomed ferry-boat lay, Damaris found not Jennifer but the withered and doubtfully clean old lobster-catcher, Timothy Proud, in possession. This disconcerted her somewhat.
The door opened, closed, and, after a minute's pause, one of the two men Damaris did not know which, she could not bring herself to look coming from between the stumpy pillars walked towards her down the half-length of the room; and bent over her, resting one hand on the back of her chair, the other on the leather inlay of the writing-table just beside the little pile of house-books.
Mrs. Frayling set herself to produce a very pretty piece of sentiment, nicely turned, decorated, worded, and succeeded to her own satisfaction. Might not she too, at this rate, claim possession of the literary gift under stress of circumstance? The idea was a new one. It amused her. And what if Damaris elected to show this precious effusion to her father, Sir Charles?
"But why do you repudiate me?" she cried again, rushing upon her fate in the bitterness of her distraction. "What have I done to deserve such harshness and humiliation?" "I gave the most precious of my possessions Damaris into your keeping, and and well we see the result. Is it not written large enough, in all conscience, for the most illiterate to read?
Mistress Damaris Sedley put the needle somewhat slowly through the velvet, her fancy busy with other embroidery, not so much listening to the spoken words as pursuing in her mind a sweet and passionate rhetoric of her own.
By this time Damaris' mind wheeled in a vicious circle, perpetually swinging round to the original starting-point. The moral puzzle proved too complicated for her, the practical one equally hard of solution. She stood between them, her father and her brother. Their interests conflicted, as did the duty she owed each; and her heart, her judgment, her piety were torn two ways at once.
Whereupon, remembering her own two girls, May and Doris good as gold, bless them, yet, her shrewdness pronounced, when compared with Damaris, but homely pieces the excellent woman sighed. What did it all then amount to? Mrs. Horniblow's logic failed. "All eyes" and very lovely ones at that Damaris might be; yet her tranquillity and serenity appeared beyond question.
"My dear lad," he said, and the smile in his eyes grew more distinct and kindly, "to Mistress Damaris Sedley I also would say farewell." He laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder. "For I would know, Henry I would know if through all the days and nights that await us over the brim of to-morrow I may dream of an hour to come when that dear and fair lady shall bid me welcome."
Word Of The Day