United States or Mozambique ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"What's going to be done?" asked everybody, as they folded their serviettes and left the table. That question was answered by Miss Giles, who beckoned to Ingred in the hall, and said briefly: "Ingred, will you fetch your hockey-stick and pads?" Ingred did not need telling twice. To take Rachel's place was indeed an honor. Such a chance did not come often.
"Walk on your toes, dear," the bonneted Ugly-Wugly whispered to the one with a wreath; and even at that thrilling crisis Gerald wondered how she could, since the toes of one foot were but the end of a golf club and of the other the end of a hockey-stick.
The books on the table were unspotted and laid in rigid parallels; not one corner of the carpet-rug was curled; and nowhere was there a hockey-stick, a torn picture-book, an old cap, or a gregarious and disorganizing dog. At home, Babbitt never read with absorption. He was concentrated enough at the office but here he crossed his legs and fidgeted.
The unfortunate bailiff must have opened the door before the spell had faded, while yet the Ugly Wuglies were something more than mere coats and hats and sticks. They had rushed out upon him, and had done this. He lay there insensible was it a golf-club or a hockey-stick that had made that horrible cut on his forehead? Gerald wondered.
The rain was coming down sharply. Reaching the door that led into the doctor's walled garden, she stretched out her hand with impetuous haste to push it open. Instantly, with disconcerting suddenness, Nick dropped the hockey-stick and swooped upon it like a bird of prey. "Who gave you that?" he demanded. He had spied a hoop of diamonds upon her third finger.
Tom had recognised him and gave him a patronising nod Tom, a little wretch whom he had cut over the back with a hockey-stick last quarter, and there he was in the centre of the square, rallying round the flag of his county, surrounded by bayonets, cross-belts, and scarlet, the band blowing trumpets and banging cymbals talking familiarly to immense warriors with tufts to their chins and Waterloo medals.
Mollie began to think of London, and of home in North Kensington, and then felt a sudden longing for her mother and Jean and the little ones for all the familiar ways of home and school. This place was lovely, and the children were perfect dears, but it would be nice to feel a hockey-stick in her hand again and she should like to see her own comfortable mother. In fact, she felt homesick!
He spoke this in a very civil tone, for he never would have thought of interfering rudely with the sacred privilege that an upper boy at a public school always has of beating a junior, especially when they happen to be brothers. The reply of Biggs, as might be expected, was to hit young Biggs with the hockey-stick twice as hard as before, until the little wretch howled with pain.
A bottle of ammoniated quinine lay on the table beside him now as he slept. As he lay there the flap of the tent was pulled softly aside. Two figures entered. Each was dressed in a flat-brimmed hat, a coloured handkerchief, a flannel shirt, football shorts, stockings, brown boots, and a whistle. Each carried a hockey-stick.
Then in a second Nick dropped her hands and stooped to pick up the hockey-stick. His face as he stood up again flashed back to its old, baffling gaiety. "What ho!" he said lightly. "Then I'm in time to dance at the wedding. Pray accept my heartiest congratulations!" Muriel murmured her thanks with her face averted. She was no longer afraid merely, but strangely, inexplicably ashamed.
Word Of The Day