United States or Panama ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"How far back was it?" he asked, and his tone was noticeably agitated. "Just after I left the last house in Stanbridge. We went on together to Westover. She mentioned something about going to see a friend there. I think Lipton was the name, and she left me suddenly." "What was the girl like?" "Small and slight, and very pretty." "Dressed in brown?" "Yes." "How did the man look?"
He soon passed the outskirts of Stanbridge, which was a small, old city, then he was in the country. The houses were sparsely set well back from the road. He met nobody, except an occasional countryman driving a wood-laden team. Presently the road lay between stately groves of oaks, although now and then they stood on one side only of the highway.
There was something last night in the Stanbridge Record, and yesterday, while you were out three reporters from New York came. I told them that I had done what I had for good and sufficient reasons, which were not dishonorable to myself or to others, and beyond that I would say nothing. I suppose the poor fellows had to tax their imaginations to fill their columns.
He spoke to the horse, whose trot quickened, and they went on in silence. At last James began to feel rather ashamed of himself. He unstiffened. "I had quite an exciting and curious experience after I left Stanbridge," said he. "Did you?" said the other in an absent voice. James went on to relate the matter in detail. His companion turned an intent face upon him as he proceeded.
He said to himself, as he strode on refreshed with his coarse fare, that girls were extraordinary: first they were bold to positive indecency, then modest to the borders of insanity. James walked on. He reached Stanbridge about noon. Then he was hungry again. There was a good hotel there, and he made a substantial meal. He had a smoke and a rest of half an hour, then he resumed his walk.
I wonder if Clemency has heard anything about it." "I will go and see," replied James. The minute he saw Clemency, who was in the parlor, he knew that she knew. By her side on the floor was the Stanbridge Record. She looked at James and pointed to it without a word. Her face was white as death. James took up the paper. That merely announced the fact of Mrs.
Gordon, moreover, took the only New York paper which reached the little hamlet. Alton had no paper of its own. The nearest was printed in Stanbridge. One man, the Presbyterian minister, subscribed to the Stanbridge paper, and paid for it in farm produce. He had a little farm, and tilled the soil when he was not saving souls.
"Well, we'll keep a lookout on the way to Wardville," said Gordon; "and, Aaron, you may as well put the chestnut in the old buggy and drive Stanbridge way, and see if you can get sight of him." "He's had a half-hour's start," said Aaron. "You might track a fox, but you can't him." "I guess you are about right," said Gordon, "but we'll do all we can.
"Here, take one of these every hour until the cough is relieved, my friend," said he. The man stared, swallowed a pellet, stared again, in an odd, suspicious, surly fashion, muttered something unintelligible and passed on. There were three villages between Gresham and Alton: Red Hill, Stanbridge, and Westover.
The Stanbridge paper had arrived the night before, and the minister had been good enough to impart some of its contents to the curious throng in the store. He was accustomed to do so. Likewise Gordon, when he was not too hurried, would open his New York paper, and read the most startling "headers" to a wide-eyed audience. This morning the paper was in the box as usual, with a number of letters.
Word Of The Day