United States or French Polynesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I hope I shouldn't have turned out a thief, even if I'd been a tinker; but perhaps it was because my mother feared that this might be the case, that she did give you the option." His uncle looked at him keenly; but Charlie, though with some difficulty, maintained the gravest face. "It is well she did so," Mr. Tufton said; "very well. If she had not done so, I should have known the reason why.
With her as with me, the weeks ate up the uneventful days and the months the uneventful weeks. In her humdrum life the falling away of Mrs. Tufton loomed catastrophic. For four months Mrs. Tufton shone splendid as the wife of the British warrior. The Wellingsford Hospital rang with her praises and glistened with her scrubbing brush. She was the Admirable Crichton of the institution.
I may say that this is a copy, signed as correct by Mr. Tufton. He could not give me the original, as it would be required as an evidence of my father's identity, in the application he is about to make for me to be declared heir to the title." "Then Gregory has been dead eighteen years!" the elder of the ladies said.
Its earliest owner was John de Veteripont, from whose family it passed by marriage into the hands of the Cliffords and Tuftons successively, and it is now the property of Sir John Tufton. Tradition records, but on what authority we know not, that Sir Philip Sidney wrote part of his "Arcadia" at this baronial mansion.
A man's first duty is to his mother if he have no wife. And your mother is a good woman. Squire Tufton would never have married her else. "Listen to me, my lad. I like you. I would fain have you for a comrade and friend; and I fear that you will not long be left in peace at home. But you shall do this thing. You shall go to your mother " "Ah, that is a good word!" cried Tom, now all eagerness.
"Is that the fellow?" She laughed. "You're right first time. How did you guess?" She scrambled to her feet. "I'll fetch him in." She fetched him in, a haggard, broad-shouldered man with a back like a sloping plank of wood. He wore corporal's stripes. He saluted and stood at rigid attention. "This is Tufton," said Betty. I despatched her in search of Marigold.
"I don't think girls expect to be kissed, except by people they like," Kate said; "but we do like kissing you, Uncle," throwing her arms round his neck, and kissing him heartily; "because you have been so kind to Charlie, and have brought us up to see him again." "You have disarranged my white tie, Niece," Mr. Tufton said, extricating himself from Kate's embrace.
Now, you see the virago-clogged Tufton is a free man, able to accept a commission and start a new life as an officer and a gentleman." "I think you're perfectly odious. Odious and cynical," she exclaimed wrathfully. "I think," said I, "that a living warrior is better than a dead Disappointment." "You don't understand," she stormed. "If I didn't love you, I could rend you to pieces."
"Men shall pay toll to Tom Tufton!" he cried, waving his sword above his head in a fierce gesture of triumph; "but the poor and the needy shall bless his name, and the oppressed shall find a haven of refuge with him!"
Betty had to point to the brief biographical note to prove to the distracted woman that the late Colonel Tufton of New Zealand could not be identical with Sergeant Tufton of the Grenadiers. She regarded Mrs. Tufton as a brand she had plucked from the burning and took a great deal of trouble with her. On the other hand, I imagine Mrs.