United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Laudersdale's head, as she entered refreshed, snowy, and fragrant herself, and the sleep-giving things on Helen's, the latter avenging herself by surveying her companion's adornment, and, as she adjusted the bloom-gray leaves of her own, inquiring if olives grew pickled. Nothing could be more airy and blithe than were Mrs.
Laudersdale, or, if yet existing, had become like the light and tender play of any lingering summer-wind in the tress upon her brow. Mrs. Laudersdale's ankle having been injured by her fall, and Mrs. McLean having taken a cold, the two invalids now became during a week and a day the auditory for all quips and pranks that Miss Heath and Mr. Raleigh could devise.
When I paused, he took up the story and finished it with ease, and and poetical justice, I may say, Mr. Raleigh. Susanne was the sister of Mrs. Laudersdale's father, though far younger than he. She met a young American gentleman, and they became interested in each other.
Laudersdale's velvets trailing over the drawing-room carpet. She was just entering, slow-paced, though in haste. She held out both of her beautiful arms. A little form of airy lightness, a very snow-wreath, blew into them. "O ma maman! Est ce que c'est toi," it cried. "O comme tu es douce! Si belle, si molle, si chère!"
Laudersdale's eye and rushed madly together to become almond-pasty?" "With a method in their madness, I hope." "Yes, all the almonds not on one side." "In company with cheese-cakes, jelly, and pasty, simply, I should have claret and crackers at home, Capua willing. Will it pay?" "You shall have Port here, when Mrs. Laudersdale comes." "Not old enough to be crusty yet, Kate," said her husband.
"Maman!" cried the sprite, and went dancing up the stairs. Mr. Raleigh's face, as he turned, darkened with a heavier flush than half a score of Indian summers branded upon it afterward. "That is Mrs. Laudersdale's little maid?" asked he, when, after a few moments, he brought the required salver. "Yes, would you ever suspect it?"
"Is that Mr. Laudersdale's age?" "How did you know Mr. Laudersdale Was my father?" "By an arithmetical process. That is his age?" "Yes; and yours?" "Not exactly. I was thirty-seven last August." "And will be thirty-eight next?" "That is the logical deduction." "I shall give you a birthday-gift when you are just twice my age." "By what courier will you make it reach me?" "Oh, I forgot. But Mr.
"Not even in Mrs. Laudersdale's instance?" "Mrs. Laudersdale has a sweet tooth, then?" Mr. Raleigh asked in return, as if there were any trivial thing concerning her in which he could yet be instructed. "I'm not going to tell you anything about Mrs. Laudersdale." "There comes that desired object, the tea-tray. It's not to be formal, then, to-night. That's a blessing!
Coming in from her walk, not five minutes later, Mrs. Laudersdale's eye was caught thereby; stooping to take it, she read with surprise her own name thereon, and ascended the stairs possessed thereof. What burden of bliss, what secret of sorrow, lay infolded there, that at the first thought she covered it with sudden kisses, and the next, crushing it against her heart, burst into a wild weeping?
And in a few minutes Helen had rifled a shelf of sufficient temptations to overcome Mrs. Laudersdale's abstinence. "After all," said she then, "you didn't answer my question." "What question?" "If it weren't odd to meet Mr. Raleigh here." "I don't know," said Mrs. Laudersdale. "Dear! Mary Purcell takes as much interest. She said he was impertinent, made her talk too much, and made fun of her."
Word Of The Day