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Killigrew was just drawing upon the tablecloth, unreproved of Annie, a sketch of a fashionable Parisian lady for Vassie's instruction when the door opened to admit of Tom, a very rare visitor at Cloom nowadays. He was in sleek black broadcloth and looked almost as ecclesiastical as Tonkin, and much more so than Boase.
Ishmael read so far, where the letter ended abruptly; there was, however, a postscript: "P.S. Do you remember Judith Parminter? She wants a holiday and is coming down with a friend. If Mrs. Penticost is still in the land of the living you might fix up for them there." Ishmael followed out all Killigrew's instructions, but that night he took the letter over to Boase.
She's gwain to be 'ansome, white as a lily she is, and it'll be better for she if she do have things to think of like the gentry. For if Ishmael's gentry, there's no rason Vassie shoulden be. They'm the same blood after all. An' it's dangerous blood, Mr. Boase." The Parson sat for a moment in silence while John-James shifted his feet anxiously.
It's an old strain of Puritanism in me, I suppose, that tells me anything is good which implies a loosening of individualism." "I don't agree with you," said Boase energetically. "The root of all things good and great is personality.
Boase, who also followed to hounds, felt his heart glow to see how well the boy was received; for Ishmael's surly shyness had passed into a new phase, expressed by a rather charming deference mingled with independence which appealed to the brusque, goodhearted members of the "county," who went to make up the very mixed hunt in that sparsely-peopled district. Still, all was not well.
"She is indeed," said Ishmael, pleased at praise of his sister, whom he knew Boase as a rule was apt to criticise silently rather than admire. "I don't think my life here would be possible without Vassie. There are times when I feel I want to take mother's head and knock it against the wall. It sounds awful, but it's true. I want to knock it and hear the crunch it would make. There!
All this bad blood needs sweetening." "I daresay," said John-James, "but meanwhile Ishmael'll be growen up further and further from his folk." "But you wouldn't have me not educate him, would you?" urged Boase, speaking as to a fellow-man; "you say yourself it's too late with Archelaus. It always was; he hated me from Ishmael's birth."
Quite naturally life had slipped through from a film of darkness on to a brighter plane, and he greeted Boase with none of the gruffness that would have weighed on him earlier. This also had the result of breaking the reticence which would otherwise have kept him from telling anything of his real feelings.
He had fastened his belt round the gate-post and was using it as a bridle, his bare knees gripped the wooden bar under him, and his little brass-tipped heels flashed in the sun like spurs. It was Saturday morning, which meant no lessons with Parson Boase at the vicarage, and a fine day in late August, which meant escape from the roof of Cloom and the tongue and hand of its mistress.
"Damnation, salvation, it's much the same thing," said Boase, cheerfully, "though naturally youth likes to use the former word. But the great thing is never to despise the means by which another man attains it. Patience, tolerance, tolerance, patience...." "Oh, I don't know," protested Ishmael. "I don't think much would get done in the world at that rate, would it?" "Perhaps not.
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