United States or Luxembourg ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


At a little distance two gardeners were at work, and a revolving sprinkler whirled sprays of glinting water in a wide circle. The back windows of the two streets disclosed not the slightest untidiness nor deshabille; rising irregularly in tier over tier to the high roof-line, they were all open, and all neatly curtained, and many of them had gorgeous sun-blinds.

She lay on a couch by the window, looking out under the sun-blinds at the dusty green of the park. Though October had begun, the summer was not yet over, and the heat was considerable. It seemed oppressive after the fresh air of the moors, and Hilda watched her cousin's languor with some anxiety. For her face had scarcely more colour than the flowers she held. "Is the paper here?" asked Chris.

The striped sun-blinds filtered the blaze outside, letting pass only a diffused and honey-coloured twilight; a great bowl of roses filled the room with the simple and deep poetry of summer, the story of the hedges and the fields, of orchards shot through with the voices of birds, of cattle knee-deep in cool water where the dragon-flies keep up their eternal dance to the flute-like ripple of the river amidst the reeds.

From the lawn, in the beautiful sadness of the autumn evening, any one might have seen and enjoyed the sight of its high French windows, its glowing sun-blinds, its faintly-tinted and beribboned curtains, its creepers, its glimpses of occasional tables, tall vases, and dressing-mirrors.

You couldn't see it. You could pretend it wasn't there. You could pretend that Mr. Sutcliffe and Mrs. Sutcliffe were not there. You could pretend that nothing had happened. There were other houses. The long house at the top of the Green was gay with rows of pink and white sun-blinds stuck out like attic roofs. The poplars in the garden played their play of falling rain.

Through a French window, under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her into the room where he was wont to study The Times and the sheets of an agricultural magazine, with huge illustrations of mangold wurzels, and the like, which provided Holly with material for her paint brush. "Dinner's in half an hour. You'd like to wash your hands! I'll take you to June's room."

And yet the house has a look of having been built chiefly for the hot weather. Looking at its white paint and sun-blinds one thinks vaguely of pugarees and even of palm trees. I cannot trace the feeling to its root; perhaps the place was built by an Anglo-Indian.

It is charitable to say, when Thomas or Jane leaves the gas burning all night, or the sun-blinds out in the pouring rain, that they have 'no head; but it is my experience that they are very careful, and, indeed, take quite extraordinary precautions, with respect to their own property.

The alternations of mood, tender and callous by turns, but never remorseful, never regretful, except with the regrets for a lost delight, both amused and repelled him, but at last as Villon sat silent he turned to the window and flung open the wooden sun-blinds. "At last they are awake in the Château," he said. "Horses? hawks? Are they going hunting, do you suppose?" "Saxe will know. Hulloa! Saxe!

But as the hour approached he grew restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive. The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle Beauce, sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending to their silkworms.