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"Then why don't you say so, and let the girl put away the things, instead of keeping her waiting all morning?" "She doesn't mind," answered Jessica, coolly. "Well, I do, if she doesn't," returned the mother, "and, anyhow, I don't like you to talk that way to me. You're too young to put on such an air with your mother." "Oh, mamma, don't row,"; answered Jessica.
The treachery for which Jessica sought pardon was easy to forgive; not so, however, the impertinent rebuke, which struck at a weak place in Nancy's conscience.
I, for my part, was not sorry, but poor Mrs Carter ! Poor? Fool, idiot! "She is forty years of age, her husband is a decent, honourable sort of fellow who worships her "That finishes the Carter friendship. "If it were not for Jessica good, matter-of-fact, reliable Jessica, welcome contrast to these hysterical, half-mad women, who laugh at and despise her where should I be, Charles?...
"What on earth are those juniors making such a fuss about?" inquired Nora O'Malley, as the four chums strolled across the campus toward the gate. The junior team, headed by Julia, was coming down the walk talking at the top of their voices. "Nothing of any importance, you may be sure," said Jessica Bright. "'Shallow brooks babble loudest, you know."
In the first place, wasn't it perfectly delightful?" "Grand!" sighed the others. "Everything except that one accident, and the thing that caused it," answered Grace. "By the way, Anne, where is the doll?" asked Jessica. Anne produced it from its box. "Here it is," she said sadly. "But it was a cruel joke. Can you imagine who could have done it?"
It is this doctrine which Shakspeare alludes to when he makes Lorenzo teach astronomy to Jessica in this fashion: "Look, Jessica, see how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim; Such harmony is in immortal souls!
"I am very sorry, Cousin Jessica," he protested. "But I left a deskful of stuff when I ran away to the wreck this morning, and really I'm afraid I shall have to beg off." "Oh, don't be so dreadfully formal!" said the president's wife impatiently. "You are a member of the family, and all you have to do is to say bluntly that you can't come, and then come whenever you can while we are here.
Jessica comprehended the truth at once, and her eyes filled with the tears which, as yet, did not overflow; for as she gazed upon the sleeper's face it filled her with amazement and something akin to delight; and at last she exclaimed: "Why, how young and glad he looks! He's even nobler than he was when he rode away from me last night, and I'd never seen him so dignified and grand as he was then.
"She was not ill when I left her. It was the other lady who was ill." John, of course, knew nothing of Lady Merivale, and gazed at Jessica as though she had taken leave of her senses. "I don't know what lady you mean," he said; "but my wife has been very ill for the past two weeks, and asking for you often. You see, I thought you had run away and left her."
"Why, yes, that's so," she conceded. "But I ain't a bit tired. Old folks don't need much sleep, you know, an' I'm pretty old. I was eighty-one last June." Jessica dropped her pillow and sat up very straight, a slight flush upon her face.
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