United States or Cabo Verde ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Well, I don't know," said Lyndall; "there are some small things I rather look to him for. If he were to invent wings, or carve a statue that one might look at for half an hour without wanting to look at something else, I should not be surprised. He may do some little thing of that kind perhaps, when he has done fermenting and the sediment has all gone to the bottom."
"I am not in so great a hurry to put my neck beneath any man's foot; and I do not so greatly admire the crying of babies," she said, as she closed her eyes half wearily and leaned back in the chair. "There are other women glad of such work." Em felt rebuked and ashamed. How could she take Lyndall and show her the white linen and the wreath, and the embroidery?
She is a miserable old woman," said the girl, throwing the leaf from her; "but I intend to go to school." "And if she won't let you?" "I shall make her." "How?" The child took not the slightest notice of the last question, and folded her small arms across her knees. "But why do you want to go, Lyndall?"
I walked all night, Lyndall, to escape the heat, and a little after sunrise I got to the top of a high hill. Before me was a long, low, blue, monotonous mountain. I walked looking at it, but I was thinking of the sea I wanted to see. At last I wondered what that curious blue thing might be; then it struck me it was the sea! I would have turned back again, only I was too tired.
In the narrow forest that ran between the mountains and the sea the air was rich that the scent of the honey-creeper that hung from dark green bushes, and through the velvety grass little streams ran purling down into the sea. He sat on a high square rock among the bushes, and Lyndall sat by him and sang to him. She was only a small child, with a blue pinafore, and a grave, grave, little face.
Em," he said, putting his hand on her arm as she passed him, "have you heard from Lyndall lately?" "Yes," said Em, turning quickly from him. "Where is she? I had one letter from her, but that is almost a year ago now just when she left. Where is she?" "In the Transvaal. I will go and get you some supper; we can talk afterward." "Can you give me her exact address? I want to write to her."
He wore an aged jacket much too large for him, and rolled up at the wrists, and, as of old, a pair of dilapidated velschoens and a felt hat. He stood before the two girls at last. "What have you been doing today?" asked Lyndall, lifting her eyes to his face. "Looking after ewes and lambs below the dam. Here!" he said, holding out his hand awkwardly, "I brought them for you."
The night was grown very old when from a long, peaceful sleep Lyndall awoke. The candle burnt at her head, the dog lay on her feet; but he shivered; it seemed as though a coldness struck up to him from his resting-place.
Lyndall had climbed up into the window, and with her fingers felt the woodwork that surrounded the panes. Slipping down, the girl loosened the iron knob from the foot of the bedstead, and climbing up again she broke with it every pane of glass in the window, beginning at the top and ending at the bottom. "What are you doing?" asked Em, who heard the falling fragments.
"I feel tired; I do not think I shall dance again," he said. Em withdrew her hand, and a young farmer came to the door and bore her off. "I have often imagined," remarked Gregory but Lyndall had risen. "I am tired," she said. "I wonder where Waldo is; he must take me home. These people will not leave off till morning, I suppose; it is three already."
Word Of The Day