United States or Timor-Leste ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Mademoiselle sat at the chief place of the table, and led the talk, imparting to it a flavor of humorous good sense very characteristic. The villa had been her father's country-house, and it abounded in a scholar's accumulations of old books in divers languages. She herself knew literature widely in the better way that it was once read.

There were many guests, principally seated at small tables of marble, and on benches and chairs covered with a coarse crimson velvet. Some were sipping coffee, some were drinking wine, others were smoking or playing dominoes, or doing both; while many were engaged in reading the foreign journals which abounded.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly things in Christ; as he hath elected us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love: having predestinated us for his adopted children by Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, whereby he hath made us acceptable in that beloved one; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded towards us with all wisdom and intelligence, having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in himself; at the dispensation of the fulness of the appointed times to gather together under one head all things in Christ, whether they be things in heaven or things in earth, in him: in whom also we have obtained our inheritance, predestinated according to the purpose of him who effectually worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will: that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first had hope in Christ.

They all then left the hall, and Cambyses, summoning his dressers, proceeded for the first time to exchange his mourning garments for the splendid royal robes. Croesus and Phanes went into the green and pleasant garden lying on the eastern side of the royal palace, which abounded in groves of trees, shrubberies, fountains and flower-beds.

As a means of pleasure, the merry-go-round, both horizontal with horses and vertical with swinging cradles, prevailed, and was none the worse for being called by the French name of carrousel, for our people aniglicize the word, and squeeze the last drop of Gallic wickedness from it by pronouncing it carousal. Of course there was everywhere soda, and places of the softer drinks abounded.

In our house was a condemned musket, bearing somewhere on its lock, in rather antique characters, 'Tower, 1746'; with this weapon I had already, in Ireland, performed some execution among the rooks and choughs, and it was now again destined to be a source of solace and amusement to me, in the winter season, especially on occasions of severe frost when birds abounded.

More than a hundred years ago Colonel Nairne and Colonel Fraser had parties of guests in the summer that must have made the two manor houses lively enough. The beauty of the place, its coolness when Quebec and Montreal suffered from sweltering heat in the short Canadian summer, the simplicity and charm of its life, proved alluring. There was also excellent sport. Salmon and trout abounded.

They are, however, in some measure, patronised by the squire, who considers the race as belonging to the good old times; which, to confess the private truth, seem to have abounded with good-for-nothing characters. This roving crew is called "Starlight Tom's Gang," from the name of its chieftain, a notorious poacher.

The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me, prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new books, music, sketches, needlework, and flowers.

The latter we had revelled in for some months past, as the countries through which we travelled abounded with a supply in the rocks and hollow trees; but the milk was a luxury, as our goats were nearly dry.