United States or Andorra ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"It is a waste of the best gifts with which Providence has endowed us. You are the worse for it both in this world and in the next." Captain Hamilton Miggs did not seem to be at all impressed by this very sensible piece of advice.
Our conscience, at least, will be pure and undefiled, and we shall pass to the end of our pilgrimage sans peur, though perchance, even then, not sans reproche. "Servitudes," as Miggs, the veteran vestal remarked, "is no inheritance," but there are natures who thrive rarely in this tranquil and inglorious condition.
It was Aunt Kate's unconscious hand that struck the blow, on a wild afternoon, All Hallow E'en, as it happened, when the older woman made the long trip to see Rose, and came on to Norma with a report that everything was going well, and Miggs more fascinating than ever. Mrs. Sheridan found Norma at the close of the short afternoon, moping in her unlighted house.
Indeed, she said and did so much to soothe the outraged feelings of Miss Miggs, and looked so beautiful while doing so, that if that young maid had not had ample vent for her surpassing spite, in a knowledge of the mischief that was brewing, she must have scratched her features, on the spot.
Stop though! there's the other. 'Which other, sir? asked Miggs still with her fingers in her ears and her head shaking obstinately. 'Why, the tallest one, yonder, said Dennis, as he stroked his chin, and added, in an undertone to himself, something about not crossing Muster Gashford.
Mr Tappertit, who was not in the best of humours, and who disliked Miss Miggs more when she laid her hand on her heart and panted for breath than at any other time, as her deficiency of outline was most apparent under such circumstances, eyed her over in his loftiest style, and deigned to express no curiosity whatever. 'I never heard the like, nor nobody else, pursued Miggs.
Lest the fact of Miss Miggs calling him, on whom she stooped to cast a favourable eye, a boy, should create surprise in any breast, it may be observed that she invariably affected to regard all male bipeds under thirty as mere chits and infants; which phenomenon is not unusual in ladies of Miss Miggs's temper, and is indeed generally found to be the associate of such indomitable and savage virtue.
'A little private vengeance in this, Mr Tappertit? 'Private vengeance, sir, or public sentiment, or both combined destroy him, said Mr Tappertit. 'Miggs says so too. Miggs and me both say so. We can't bear the plotting and undermining that takes place. Our souls recoil from it. Barnaby Rudge and Mrs Rudge are in it likewise; but the villain, Joseph Willet, is the ringleader.
And, while on serious topics, Miss Miggs considered it her duty to try her hand at the conversion of Miss Haredale; for whose improvement she launched into a polemical address of some length, in the course whereof, she likened herself unto a chosen missionary, and that young lady to a cannibal in darkness.
"Captain Miggs in?" asked McPherson of a rubicund, white-aproned personage behind the bar. "Yes, sir. He's in his room, sir, and expectin' you. There's a gent with him, sir, but he told me to send you up. This way, sir."
Word Of The Day