Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 6, 2025
When a man marries an heiress for her money, if that money be within her own control, as was the case with Miss Macleod's fortune, it is generally well for the speculating lover that the lady's friends should quarrel with him and with her. She is thereby driven to throw herself entirely into the gentleman's arms, and he thus becomes possessed of the wife and the money without the abominable nuisance of stringent settlements. But the Macleods, though they quarrelled with Alice, did not quarrel with her
Yet Lieutenant Ogilvie, on his rare visits to London, had more than once heard Sir Keith Macleod's name mentioned in conjunction with that of the young actress whom society was pleased to regard with a special and unusual favor just then; and once or twice he, as Macleod's friend, had been archly questioned on the subject by some inquisitive lady, whose eyes asked more than her words.
And here was Odalie, for a good-natured soldier, one of the boat's crew of the previous evening, had instantly run to her cabin with the news of the arrival restored to her normal poise in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, by the shattering of her dismal forebodings in the glad reality of MacLeod's safety.
Even Captain Demeré joined in the laugh at her, only becoming grave to insist that she should not, without notice to him, divulge the fact that she was not French, but of Carolinian birth and parentage, and the further fact and his serious face relaxed that she, herself, was the commandant at MacLeod's Station, and that Sandy and Hamish, Fifine and "Dill," were the mere minions of her power.
This last was a notion of Macleod's amiable hostess; she had made up those miniature bouquets herself. But she had been forestalled in the pretty compliment. Macleod had not seen much of Miss Gertrude White in the cold twilight outside.
The strain must indeed have been enormous, and one cannot but feel that much of it was a needless, even trivial "expense of spirit," and regret that, when "Fiona Macleod" had so manifestly come into her own, William Sharp should have continued to keep up the mystification, entailing as it did such an elaborate machinery of concealment, not the least taxing of which must have been the necessity of keeping up "Fiona Macleod's" correspondence as well as his own.
Although I am in no sense a music critic, nor even a connoisseur, I will confess that I have often been actually transported with delight by neighbor Macleod's rendition of "The Campbells Are Coming" on the bagpipes.
Nor did she again on this occasion attempt to take Alice to Lady Midlothian's. Indeed, their usual subjects of conversation were almost abandoned, and Lady Macleod's visits, though they were as constant as heretofore, were not so long. She did not dare to talk about Mr Grey, and because she did not so dare, was determined to regard herself as in a degree ill-used.
All through Castle Dare it was understood that there was no distinct destination marked down for the Umpire on this suddenly-arranged voyage of hers; but all the same Sir Keith Macleod's inquiries went no farther, at present at least, than the river Thames.
Drennen came to understand dully as the day wore on that there could be but one explanation; a rush like this meant that some fool had dropped his pick into a vein of gold and word of it had flashed across the mountains. Even then, his pain and exhaustion and giddy sickness were such that he did not realise that he himself was to thank for the pouring of hundreds of men into MacLeod's.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking