United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Her brother Cary, above referred to, a sixteen-year-old specimen of Young American impudence and independence, said further of her, in the spring of '94, that if Floy's sleeves were only inflated with gas she could float on air as easily as she did on water, and on water Miss Allison was buoyancy personified.
He lay down to sleep again, with a genial smile on his face, listening to the hymn. "It's the same God," he said, "Floy's and theirs." Outside, as he slept, a dark figure watched him. The song of the men ceased. Midnight, white and silent, covered the earth. He could hear only the slow breathing of the sleeper.
Yet he could not forget the murdered man sitting there in the calm moonlight, the dead face turned towards the North, the dead face, whereon little Floy's tears should never fall. The grave, unmoving eyes seemed to the boatman to turn to him with the same awful question. "Was this well done?" they said. He thought in eternity they would rise before him, sad, unanswered.
Sometimes she looked up and smiled at Floy; and then Floy wished she had not smiled at all it was so unlike the old smile her face used to wear in dear papa's life-time. Floy became very tired of that close room. There were no pretty pictures on the walls, like those in Floy's house in the country; the chairs were hard and uncomfortable, and little Floy had nothing to amuse her.
Oh, Mr Walter, don't desert me, Staggs's Gardens, if you please! Miss Floy's darling all our darlings little, meek, meek Master Paul! Oh Mr Walter! 'Good God! cried Walter. 'Is he very ill?
When he was alone, she would come in, and sit on his lap awhile, and kneel down before she went away, her head on his knee, to say her prayers, as she called it. Only God knew how many times he had remained alone after hearing those prayers, saved from nights of drunken debauch. He thought he felt Floy's pure little hand on his forehead now, as if she were saying her usual "Good night, Bud."
The sky is cloudless the birds are singing and little Floy's tears are all dried up. Her cheeks are plump and rosy; she has plenty to eat now; and another pair of shoes, when she has danced her toes out of those she has on.
She was quite sure she had met some of them once or twice, when mamma had taken her out to church but somehow they didn't seem to see either mamma or Floy. Well, my dear children, it was the thought of all these things that sent the warm tears to Floy's bright eyes, as she looked in at the fruiterer's window that hot August morning. Two years have gone by. It is August again.
'Remembering, however, if you'll be so good, that Miss Floy's under my charge, and Master Paul's under your'n. 'But still we needn't quarrel, said Polly. 'Oh no, Mrs Richards, rejoined Spitfire.
If it cost any effort to say it, Dorr saw nothing of it. "Good night, Lamar! I'll see you in the morning." He lingered. His old comrade looked strangely alone and desolate. "John!" "What is it, Dorr?" "If I could tell the Colonel you would take the oath? For Floy's sake." The man's rough face reddened. "You should know me better. Good bye." "Well, well, you are mad. Have you no message for Ruth?"
Word Of The Day