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All these days when she's been without hope, and these awful nichts, when she's watched and feared alone, she has no wished to perpetuate him in children who might be like him, and so at their coming the 'vital spark' is na in them. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, have ye Mary's happiness and those three little graves to answer for?" He found Jimmy asleep where he had left him. Dannie shook him awake.

He was silent a moment, tugging at his fair moustache, his eyes avoiding hers. Then: "It wouldn't be worth all the work you'd put into it," he objected with an uneasy laugh. "I'm the best judge of that. Inspiration's been dead in me for months; and now that you have set the spark ablaze, it's hardly fair or gracious to fling cold water on the poor thing.

A short time in the upper chamber restored their calmness, and they no longer seemed such fearful things, those grim barrels of harmless looking black grains, which might lie harmless for centuries, as they had seen them, or, at the touch of a single tiny spark, shake London as by an earthquake, vacate a royal throne, and exterminate in an instant the proudest government in Europe.

Yet how could he begin to woo her if he saw no spark of womanly tenderness? He asked himself, because the beginning of the wooing might be checked by the call on him for words of repentance only just possible to conceive. Imagine them uttered, and she has the initiative for life. She would not have it, certainly, with a downright brute. But he was not that.

It was just as though one were to hand some one a flint and steel and suggest to him that he was to use it. In the end, the spark is obtained. In my case, what produced the spark was the unconscious but inevitable comparison which he drew between the cornelian clasp, the element of luck, and Mercury, the god of luck. That was enough.

Ayisha seemed about as safe an ambassador to send as an electric spark to a barrel of powder. I glanced at Narayan Singh and felt ashamed, for his eyes glowed unmistakably. He was enthusiastic. Well, it seems I draw a color-line after all. I can't fight like a Sikh, or be as good a man in lots of ways; but I'm not going to be outdone by one in daring, while the Sikh is looking.

Her great beauty had charmed him from the first moment of their meeting, but no impure thought stirred his heart as he gazed at her with delight, and listened with emotion to her childlike talk. It was the hot torrent of Polykarp's words that had first thrown the spark into his soul, which jealousy and the dread of having to abandon Sirona to another, had soon fanned into a consuming flame.

"Indeed, Mr. Wiseman, said Betsey, my youngest daughter, what you have told us is exactly true; for I have been in company with Miss Chatterfast several times, and I remember once in particular that when Master Sprightly, who was a merry young spark, had stolen a kiss from Miss Patty Sweetlips, though the poor young lady blushed as red as scarlet, and seemed to be greatly displeased at the freedom which had been taken with her, Miss Chatterfast was so mischievous as to represent her to all her acquaintance as a bold little hussey, who loved to be kissed by the young gentlemen.

The iron hoops here and there built into the walls for that purpose, held long pine-sticks, to be lighted as torches after dark; and they would need careful watching, for a great deal of the city was built of wood, and if a spark lighted on the walls, a serious fire might be the result.

In all this there was much petulance, but very little dignity, while there was neither a spark of real sympathy for the oppressed millions, nor a throb of genuine womanly emotion for the impending fate of the two nobles.