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


We nowadays go back to du Maurier's pictures, where the after-glow remains, and they seem separated from us by something thicker than time, as if a great wall had been built up between the age of the twopenny tube and that of the carriage-and-pair.

His stately carriage-and-pair had pushed its way into the crowd of smaller and humbler vehicular fry earlier in the afternoon, and on that occasion also the old gentleman had indulged in a grave promenade upon the platform. He was walking up and down there now, with his hand in the small of his back, where of late he had been aware of a constant aching pain.

He'd neglected two parishes to come and preach the sermon: for Ardevora, you must know, was one of three livings he held besides a canonry, and he kept Grandison to serve the three, that being all he could afford after paying for his carriage-and-pair and postillions to carry him back and forth between us and Penzance, where he lodged for the sake of his asthma and the little card-parties for which Penzance was famous in those days.

"Oh, horrible!" I exclaimed to myself: "Does anyone really imagine that these motor-cars are as smart as the old carriage-and-pair? I dare say. I am too old now but I was not intended for a world in which women shackle themselves in garments that are not even made of cloth.

The Kilblazes' estate is not so large as the Tuggeridge property by two thousand a year at least; and so my wife, when our neighbors kept only two footmen, was quite authorized in having three; and she made it a point, as soon as ever the Kilblazes' carriage-and-pair came round, to have out her own carriage-and-four. Well, our box was next to theirs at the Opera; only twice as big.

There was an open carriage-and-four, for the Honourable Samuel Slumkey; and there were four carriage-and-pair, for his friends and supporters; and the flags were rustling, and the band was playing, and the constables were swearing, and the twenty committee-men were squabbling, and the mob were shouting, and the horses were backing, and the post-boys perspiring; and everybody, and everything, then and there assembled, was for the special use, behoof, honour, and renown, of the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, of Slumkey Hall, one of the candidates for the representation of the borough of Eatanswill, in the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Cornelius, to whom the millwright always addressed his letters when he wrote any, drew from his pocket and re-read as he walked the curt note which had led to this journey being undertaken; it was despatched by their father the night before, immediately upon his liberation, and stated that he was setting out for Narrobourne at the moment of writing; that having no money he would be obliged to walk all the way; that he calculated on passing through the intervening town of Ivell about six on the following day, where he should sup at the Castle Inn, and where he hoped they would meet him with a carriage-and-pair, or some other such conveyance, that he might not disgrace them by arriving like a tramp.

Each morning Kitty and I drove round the town in an open carriage-and-pair decorated with our colours, bowing to such of our constituents as would look at us, and punctiliously returning any salutes we received. Occasionally whole-hearted supporters would give us a cheer, and occasionally rather more frequently, it seemed to me disagreeable persons booed at us.

The thundering carriage-and-pair encountered were now likewise recalled, as well as that puzzling signal, the waved handkerchief. From these premises, and one or two others, inaccessible to any but myself, I could draw but one inference. It was a case of elopement. Morally certain on this head, and seeing Madame Beck's profound embarrassment, I at last communicated my conviction.

There came a day when the folk of Deadborough were started from their wonted apathy by the apparition of a Strange Man. They saw him first as he drove from the station in a splendid carriage-and-pair, with a coronet on its panels. Seated in the carriage was a venerable being with a swarthy countenance and headgear of the whitest such was the brief vision.