United States or Wallis and Futuna ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then he screwed up his eyes, moved his head backward and from side to side, as though to correct his view of a picture. 'Just one point out of the picture. Dare I alter it? May I? And, stepping forward, he thrust well down in my breast coat pocket Mrs. Gabbitas's gorgeous silk handkerchief. 'Yes, as he moved backward again, 'that's better. One never can see these things for oneself.
The paint-plastered woodwork, with coat above coat of nasty paint, that in particular blazed finely. I have already tried to give you an impression of old-world furniture, of Parload's bedroom, my mother's room, Mr. Gabbitas's sitting-room, but, thank Heaven! there is nothing in life now to convey the peculiar dinginess of it all.
Gabbitas's career turned. Having spent all her life in Australia, she had not been presented at Court; but, alone, unaccompanied, and from her place among the chapel congregation, she had, in answer to the minister's call, made one service historic by singing 'How beautiful upon the mountains! It was a pious and pleasant memory, and I admit the story of it did add to her dignity in my eyes.
At about daybreak then my first duties would take me to the wood-heap, with axe and saw, and subsequently to the scullery with a heaped barrow-load of fuel for the day. Arrived there I polished the household's boots and knives, washed my hands at Mrs. Gabbitas's immaculate sink a more scrupulously clean housewife I have yet to meet and proceeded to the feeding and milking of Bella.
Indeed, she frequently spoke of 'my' dining-room table, bedrooms, silver, front hall, windows, and the like. Even the meals served to Mr. and Mrs. Perkins were, until eaten, 'my dining-room breakfast, 'my dining-room tea, and so forth. On my way back from the ash-heap with Mrs. Gabbitas's bucket, I almost collided with Mr.
Thus the daily newspaper became my perquisite each evening, to be returned faithfully in the morning with the day's supply of fuel, in order that it might duly fulfil its higher and more serviceable destiny in Mrs. Gabbitas's stove. For quite a long time I never scanned the news columns of that really admirable newspaper.
Gabbitas's kitchen, or at my North Shore lodging. And then the figure of my host, lounging at table in the rosy light, a cigarette between the shapely fingers of his right hand I had not before seen any one smoke at the dinner-table his brown velvet coat, his languidly graceful gestures, the delicate hue of his flowing neck-tie, the costly sort of negligence of his whole dress and deportment all these trifling matters were alike rare and exquisite in my eyes.
These epistles, however, all ended their brief careers under the kindling wood in Mrs. Gabbitas's kitchen grate. 'Applicatious and industrial, with bettermentatious ambitions, Mr. Perkins had said of me within a few moments of our first meeting, and at this period I think I justified the sense of his comment. My daily work was pleasant enough, of course, healthy and not fatiguing.
'It do show the dust, but it don't show the wear so much as the rest of 'em, was the Gabbitular verdict which finally settled this momentous business. A tie to match was given in with the suit, a concession which I owed entirely to Mrs. Gabbitas's determined enterprise.
Word Of The Day