United States or Papua New Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Once Théo had urged her to set their wedding-day, but she had put him off and he had never again opened the question. That the young man was not, could not possibly be, perfectly satisfied with the state of affairs, she knew very well, but that, she told herself, she could not help.
"Hello, Theo," said he. "How d'ye do, Estelle?" Miss Wilmot shook hands with him, a shade constrainedly. "How are you, Arthur?" she said. It was in his mouth to ask why she hadn't been to see Adelaide. He checked himself just in time.
As the dog-cart turned into the open road, Honor spoke: "Theo, if she lets him go to pieces again . . . I shall never, never forgive her." There was a break in her low voice, and Desmond slipping a hand through her arm, pressed it close against him. "You dear blessed woman, no fear of that. She cares, with all her heart.
Placing her arm round Queenie's little neck, Theo tried to make the child understand that such a proceeding would not be fair, nor upright, nor honest. It would not be getting out of the difficulty; it would rather be making it a deeper one. 'What's difficulties? abruptly asked Queenie, with her round, solemn eyes gazing into her sister's face.
"You are silly sometimes, Hetty," says Theo, "that is when you speak unkindly to people who mean you well, as you did to Mr. Warrington at tea to-night. When he proposed to us his party at the Assembly Rooms, and nothing could be more gallant of him, why did you say you didn't care for music, or dancing, or tea? You know you love them all!"
But children are such elastic creatures; and if I arrived to find him quite frisky and well, think how ashamed I should feel at having deserted Theo, and put him to so much expense for nothing. But I do want to wire at once; though I hardly like sending Theo's orderly . . ."
Theodore sat up in bed with whitening face. "Molly," he stammered, "Molly, has any one hurt her? Has " Molly shook her head disgustedly. "Don't be foolish, Theo," she chided. "No one would want to hurt a grown girl like her." "Then what about the man?" "I think she went away with him." "Where to?" "I'm not sure " Theodore sank back.
It is all very well for her to say she is older than David, and that she takes a sisterly interest in him because Theo is so unsatisfactory; but there is no need to give him so much of her company. Oh, no need at all, and it will only make people talk." And here the careful elder sister sighed as though she were oppressed with her responsibilities. "Elizabeth is only thirty," she went on.
She rose hastily, unable to control herself, to meet it, whatever it was. It was not a ceremonious servant announcing a visit, but Theo Warrender, pale as death itself, with a whole tragic volume in his face, but speechless, not knowing, now that he stood before her, what to say, who appeared in the doorway.
"Well?" said the teacher, inquiringly. Theodore hesitated a moment, then answered in a low tone, "You 'member them verses you showed me that first Sunday, Mr. Scott?" The gentleman smiled down into the sober, boyish face. "I remember," he replied, "but, Theo, this is a grave matter. To beat a boy until he is unconscious, and then leave him to live or die, is a crime.
Word Of The Day