United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She chose the least antiquated blouse in Deena's wardrobe, and pinned it into place with the precision of experience; next she hooked the new skirt round the waist and held the little coat for her sister to put on. "Where is your hat?" she demanded. Deena fetched a plain black straw, rusty from the sun and dust of two summers, and shook her head as she tried to pinch the bows into shape.
In the great city she had been but a human atom. Her conduct, her unhappiness, her very existence mattered to no one there, except, perhaps, to Ben and Polly, who were as tender and sympathetic as such vigorous people could be; but in Harmouth every creature was interested in Simeon's fate, and watched Deena with a curiosity she found maddening.
Shelton's convenience till after her visit, and that his aunt had expressed a wish that her clothes and jewels should be given to Mrs. Shelton. "We'll go, Mary!" said Mr. Shelton, blithe as a lark several things had raised his spirits! and Mrs. Shelton, with a burst of her old energy, borrowed some mourning, packed her trunk, summoned Deena and caught the train, with five minutes to spare.
It was disagreeable to him to have momentous affairs like his own discussed by anticipation with Deena Deena, who was only a woman, and he now feared a silly one at that. "It is no secret, then!" said Simeon, contemptuously, and added, turning to his wife: "Be good enough not to speak of this before the servant; I should be sorry to have the faculty hear of such a thing from anyone but me."
She kept up an easy chatter, sometimes in French, sometimes in English, with the Russian and with a Spanish artist; she never allowed Deena to feel out of touch with the conversation, and in the midst of it all she managed to welcome her nephew. "You are stopping at my house, of course, Stephen? No at the Savoy? That is uncharitable to a lonely old woman.
The servant announced the meal, and by Deena's orders knocked at the study door, but got no response; indeed, the pièce de résistance the smoked beef and eggs had almost hardened into a solid cake before the friends emerged, arm in arm, and followed Deena to the table.
He began to think he had exaggerated an extreme admiration into love that he was an honorable man and a gentleman, and could keep his secret as many another had done before him; and that if Deena went away for the winter it removed the only danger, which was in daily meeting under terms of established intimacy.
"Could you be happy on such an island with the man of your heart, Mrs. Ponsonby?" asked Stephen. And Deena, feeling that Simeon was perforce the man of her heart, and that he was quite unfitted to live on sea air and love, answered, smiling: "Not unless there were a perfectly new flora to keep him contented."
Deena considered the two points of his answer expense and Simeon's approbation and replied thoughtfully: "My husband would recognize so simple a duty, and, as far as expense goes, I am a perfectly independent woman. Didn't you know our story the one you made me rewrite sold at once, and, besides that, I have placed a number of fugitive poems?
"He has sacrificed everything to me his ambitions his time his comfort his money, though that is the last thing he would begrudge, but you have no idea what it costs to run one of those large yachts! It must have made an inroad even in his large fortune. He has been a friend indeed!" Deena turned away her face; it was hard for her to praise Stephen, although her heart echoed her husband's words.
Word Of The Day