United States or Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The place is mine, and I cannot see that you have any right to interfere in the improvements I choose to make on it." A deep flush stole over Miss Greylston's face. "I have indeed no legal right to counsel or plead with you about these things," she answered sadly, "but I have a sister's right, that of affection you cannot deny this, John. Once again, I beg of you to let the old pines alone."
My dear, noble sister!" The tears filled John Greylston's dark blue eyes, but his smile was so exceedingly tender and beautiful, that Annie drew closer to his side. "Oh, that lovely smile!" she cried, "how it lights your face; and now you look so good and forgiving, dearer and better even than a king.
John Greylston's portrait hung in the parlour; it was painted in his young days, when he was very handsome. His sister could not weary of looking at it; to her this picture seemed the very embodiment of beauty. Dear, unconscious soul, she never thought how much it was like herself, or even the portrait of her which hung in the opposite recess for brother and sister strikingly resembled each other.
But when eventide came, and he sat down to supper, and missed again his sister's calm and pleasant face, a half-regretful feeling stole over him, and he grew lonely, for John Greylston's heart was the home of every kindly affection. He loved Margaret dearly. Still, pride and anger kept him aloof from her; still his soul was full of harsh, unforgiving thoughts.
So her brother, after a hurried "Good-night," took a candle and went up to his own room, never speaking one gentle word; for he said to himself, "I am not going to worry and coax with Margaret any longer about the old pines. She is really troublesome with her sentimental notions." Yet, after all, John Greylston's heart reproached him, and he felt restless and ill at ease.
Oh, weary heart! endure yet "a little while" longer. Even now the angel of reconciliation is on the wing. Whilst John Greylston sat alone upon the foot of the porch at the front of the house, and his sister stood so sadly in the parlour, the city stage came whirling along the dusty turnpike. It stopped for a few minutes opposite the lane which led to John Greylston's place.
Wasn't it droll, though, that lecture being cut so short?" and Annie threw herself down in the great cushioned chair, and laughed heartily. Annie Bermond was the youngest of John and Margaret Greylston's nieces and nephews. Her beauty, her sweet and sunny temper made her a favourite at home and abroad. John Greylston loved her dearly; he always thought she looked like his chosen bride, Ellen Day.
Greylston's wrath did not abate; and when he came home at dinner-time, and found the table so nicely set, and no one but the little servant to wait upon him, Margaret away, shut up with a bad headache, in her own room, he somehow felt relieved, just then he did not want to see her.
Let me write here what John Greylston's tongue refused to say. Those thoughts, indeed, had done him good; they were tender, self-upbraiding, loving thoughts, mingled, all the while, with touching memories, mournful glimpses of the past the days of his sore bereavement, when the coffin-lid was first shut down over Ellen Day's sweet face, and he was smitten to the earth with anguish.
Word Of The Day