United States or Belgium ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Time and again he had promised himself that he would strive to win back that friendship; but well he knew that first he must reinstate himself in Armstrong's respect; and how could he hope for that so long as he surrendered to the fascinations that kept him dangling about the dainty skirts of Witchie Garrison?
"Oh! beg a thousand pardons," he added hastily, as he bumped against some slender object, and, wheeling about to pick up a flimsy white fan, he found himself face to face with Witchie Garrison, kerchief waving, beaming, smiling, throwing kisses innumerable to the party he had so lately left.
The carriage stopped only at certain designated points, and only then when a group of officers stood ready to greet them. Not once had they been menaced by any one nor approached by any man even faintly resembling poor Latrobe; and Witchie Garrison was beginning to take heart and look upon that threatening letter as a mad piece of "bluff" when one day the unexpected happened.
He had even thought to go to the colonel with his trouble, make a clean breast of it, tell him the truth that he had fallen deeply, as it was possible for him to fall, in love with Amy Lawrence; had hoped his love was returned; had found it was not that she had only a frank, friendly, kindly interest in him; and that, wounded and stung, he had fretted himself into a fever at Honolulu, aided by Canker's aspersions, and then well any man is liable, said Billy to himself, to get smitten with a woman who tenderly and skillfully nurses him day after day; and that's just what Witchie Garrison did.
Stockman, and the latter felt that she must go, and Witchie consented without demur. In no pleasant mood Armstrong mounted and trotted for the east gate. The road was lined with camps and volunteers at drill. Vehicles were frequently moving to and fro; but the sentry at the entrance had kept track of them, and in response to question answered promptly and positively Mrs.
Now, for nearly a fortnight, the lovely guest had been daily hinting that she really must go home, "dear Witchie" was surely tired of her; and Witchie disclaimed and protested and vowed she could not live without her devoted friend. But then had come that letter and with it a change of tone and tactics. Witchie ceased to remonstrate or reprove Mrs.
That letter beat the ordinary mail, for the Queen was heading seaward, even as the Gaelic came steaming in the coral-guarded harbor, and a little packet was tossed aboard the new troop ship as she sped away, one missive in it telling Witchie Garrison that the man whose life had been wrecked by her sister's enforced desertion was already in Manila awaiting her coming, and telling her, moreover, that the packet placed in General Drayton's hands contained only her earlier letters.
Ever since that day when the China slipped from her moorings, with Witchie Garrison singling him out for lavish farewell favors, she had wondered why it so annoyed and stung her.
The streets were full of scurrying soldiers, and it was the simplest thing in the world for him to mingle with them and make his way to his own command. Of course, Gray well knew who the man must be Nita's troublesome lover of whom Witchie had told him so much.
It was every bit as good as the other, but it didn't sound so, and they couldn't see it; and there were faces sour as the product of the ship's baker when that evening all hands went down to dinner, and the silence maintained, or the ominously subdued tone of the talk, at the other tables, was in marked contrast with the hilarity that prevailed where sat the gray-haired, ruddy-cheeked old chief and the laughing coterie that listened to the fun that fell from the lips of Witchie Garrison.
Word Of The Day