United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Their host was consequently delighted when, at an early hour, Miss Heatherton and Miss Long arrived, as they had promised to do. Their manifest adoration would produce an admirable spot light in which he might stand during the function, but more than that, he hoped that Helen herself would be impressed by the deep regard in which these fair disciples evidently held him and his work.
There were better chances for a man out there, he said; in Heatherton he might slave all his life and never make more than a bare living. Out west he might make a fortune. Wesley talked on in this strain for some time, rehashing all the arguments he had heard Greene and Cary use.
I regretted that time did not permit of my visiting the celebrated Ostrich Farm of Mr. Arthur Douglass, at Heatherton Towers, about fifteen miles from Grahamstown. Mr. Douglass has the largest and most successful Ostrich Farm in the Colony, in addition to which he is the patentee of an egg hatching machine, or incubator, which is very much used in various parts of South Africa.
He went over to Centreville oftener, and kept his blood at fever heat talking to Greene and Cary, who wanted him to go with them and spared no pains at inducement. The matter was gossiped about in Heatherton, of course. People knew that Wesley Brooke had caught "the western fever," and wanted to sell out and go to Manitoba, while Theodosia was opposed to it.
People had given up talking about the matter and asking Theodosia when she was going out to Wes. Heatherton had grown used to the chronic scandal within its decorous borders. Theodosia never spoke of her husband to anyone, and it was known that they did not correspond. She took her youngest sister to live with her. She had her garden and hens and a cow.
Miss Heatherton, on whom his inspired gaze at this juncture rested, closed her eyes, as though she feared to disturb even by a glance the continuity of this astonishing harangue. At the footstool of Olympus sat Miss Long, in patient ecstasy.
For its little hour the picture should reign with its sovereignty unquestioned, while if you were near by " he broke off meaningly, and Miss Long rewarded his compliment with a bovine glance of rapture, while Miss Heatherton looked modestly down at the teapot.
I proposed going back east, but Dosia says she'd rather stay here. I'm the happiest man in Red Butte, Doc." He squeezed Theodosia's hand as he had used to do long ago in Heatherton church, and Dosia smiled down at him. There were no dimples now, but her smile was very sweet.
He had always been rather disposed to grumble at his limited chances in Heatherton, and now the great West seemed to stretch before him, full of alluring prospects and visions. Ogden and Tom wanted him to go too, he said. He had half a notion to. Heatherton was a stick-in-the-mud sort of place anyhow. "What say, Dosia?" He looked across the table at her, his eyes bright and questioning.
He had knocked up a little shack, was learning to cook his own meals, and was very busy. He thought the country was a grand one and the prospects good. Theodosia answered his letter and told him all the Heatherton news. She signed herself "Theodosia Brooke," but otherwise there was nothing in the letter to indicate that it was written by a wife to her husband.
Word Of The Day