United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"'Answer of Gideon Darden, Minister of Fair View Parish, in Virginia, to the several Queries contained in my Lord Bishop of London's Circular Letter to the Clergy in Virginia," she read, and poised her pen in air. "Read out the questions," ordered Darden, "and write my answer to each in the space beneath. No blots, mind you, and spell not after the promptings of your woman's nature."
Commissary showed himself vastly civil? I dare say you're to preach before the Governor next Sunday? Or maybe they've chosen Bailey? He boasts that he can drink you under the table! One of these fine days you'll drink and curse and game yourself out of a parish!" Darden drew figures on the ground with his heavy stick.
"'Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten shillings the hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching of a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening'" began Darden for the Bishop's information.
Too soon came the slave to call them to the house; the time within, though spent in the company of Darden and his wife, passed too soon; too soon came the long shadows of the afternoon and Haward's call for his horse. Audrey watched him ride away, and the love light was in her eyes. She did not know that it was so.
Although the house of worship which boasted as its ornament the Reverend Gideon Darden was not so large and handsome as Bruton church, nor could rival the painted glories of Poplar Spring, it was yet a building good enough, of brick, with a fair white spire and a decorous mantle of ivy. The churchyard, too, was pleasant, though somewhat crowded with the dead.
"These be fine tales I hear of you, Mr. Darden," said his parishioner calmly. "I should judge you were near the end of your rope. There's a vestry meeting Thursday. Shall I put in a good word for your reverence? Egad, you need it!" "I shall be your honor's most humble, most obliged servant," quoth the minister. "The affair at the French ordinary was nothing.
Audrey, in her brown dress, with the color yet in her cheeks, entering at the moment, Mistress Deborah attempted no response to her husband's adjuration. Darden turned to the girl. "I've done with the writing for the nonce, child," he said, "and need you no longer. I'll smoke a pipe and think of my sermon. You're tired; out with you into the sunshine!
Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon either arm of his chair. "Eh!" he said; then, in a meditative tone, "That is so, there is Audrey." "If he has eyes, he'll see that for himself," retorted Mistress Deborah tartly. "'More to the purpose, he'll say, 'where is the money that I gave you for her?"
"If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughter there." "She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife, I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curious in Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came to Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so.
Darden and their work was done from there. The amendment failed but not because of their feeble efforts. It was opposed by the strongest political forces in Texas, including the liquor interests. The vote was 141,773 ayes, 166,893 noes; defeated by a majority of 25,120.
Word Of The Day