United States or Morocco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Laura with her chin propped on her hands at one of the broad sills stirred uneasily in her chair and glanced sideways at her roommate who was seated before the other window. Lucine had stopped reading aloud and was regarding the door with an irritable frown on her vivid dark face.
Listen: "'It doth repent me; words are quick and vain; Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine, I wish no living thing to suffer pain." "Laura!" Lucine raised her head dreamily. She was unconscious of how the evening hours had drifted past, leaving only a few lingering students here and there in the library.
But by and by she would have leisure to grow unselfish and show the girls how noble and charming and altogether delightful she could be by and by. Meanwhile her work came first. She simply had to succeed in winning this editorship. While Lucine lingered there, leaning her forehead against the cool pane, footsteps sounded from around the transverse; and two figures, arm in arm, strolled nearer.
"Let's not talk about next year," she mumbled uncomfortably, "it is so far off and ever so many things may happen before June. Of course," she faltered and swallowed something in her throat, "I'd love to room with you, if if I can. But now we must hurry with this essay." "Well, remember that I have asked you first," said Lucine, "and I can't spare you." Laura said nothing.
Lucine glided from the recess, passed swiftly from the library, climbed the stairs to her room, moved toward the drawer which held the essay, and felt for the key in her pocket. It was gone. It must have fallen out while she read, doubled up on the low step. In wild haste now, for the minutes were flying and the board of editors might even now have adjourned, she hurried back to search.
Her beauty lay in her expression which brightened charmingly from minute to minute since her escape. "Oh, how good the air smells!" she stopped to lean from an open window. "Lucine shivers at every draught. It is hard to manage the ventilation to suit two persons in the same room. I smother " "Of course you smother and you smother a good many more hours than she shivers. Trust her for that.
"A conceited selfish inconsiderate " She clapped her hand to her mouth with a quick sobbing breath. "Oh, Lucine, we can't be friends. I've tried and tried, but we can't." From beneath lowered eyelids Lucine watched the slight little figure hurry to the door and vanish.
Brushing her aside Lucine swept on into the library, turned into the recess, and dropped on her knees beside the step to look for the stray key. Her eyes fell upon the open book which lay face downward where she had forgotten it. Then she remembered. "I wish no living thing to suffer pain."
Berta swung Laura around in front of her and studied her curiously while she spoke. "You are a good steady worker, you understand. You have critical ability and a simple, sincere style. If elected you would make an excellent editor, but now listen, but, I say, you are not a genius like Lucine Brett. She is brilliant.
Lucine watched her with a wistfulness that softened to tenderness the faint lines of native selfishness about her mouth. "Laura, I want you to room with me next year. We can choose a double with a study and adjoining bedrooms. It will make me so happy.
Word Of The Day