United States or Turkey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This phrase was amusing when it proceeded from her lips. What! "struggle for life" with those little delicate, soft, childlike hands? How absurd! She laughed at the idea now, and all those who heard her laughed with her; Marien laughed more than any one.
It seems to me that I have seen it somewhere." "No doubt you have," replied Jacqueline, who had quite recovered from her first shock, and was now ready to talk; "it is the dress mamma had made some time ago when she acted in a comedy." "So I thought," growled Marien, biting his lips. The dress recalled to his mind many personal recollections, and for one instant he paused.
It is something tender intense profound, too feminine. It may come to her some day, perhaps but hitherto Jacqueline's expression has been generally that of a merry, mischievous child." "Oh, papa!" cried the young girl, stung by the insult. "You may possibly be right," Marien hastened to reply, "it was probably the fatigue of posing that gave her that expression."
Marien dared not press the hand which she, who had been his little friend for years, offered him as usual, but this time with repugnance. "You are suffering, my poor Jacqueline!" he ventured to say. "Oh! not much," she answered, with a glance at once haughty and defiant, "to-morrow I shall be quite well again." And, saying this, she had the courage to laugh.
Now I know what to expect " "That is nonsense," replied Marien "mere foolishness. You jealous! jealous of a baby whom I knew when she wore white pinafores, who has grown up under my very eyes? But, so far as I am concerned, she exists no longer. She is not, she never will be in my eyes, a woman. I shall think of her as playing with her doll, eating sugar-plums, and so on." Jacqueline grew faint.
She had not felt in the least fatigued when Marien at last said to her, apologetically: "You must be ready to drop I forgot you were not made of wood; we will go on to-morrow."
"Then," replied Marien, "I can say nothing," and he made ready for his sitter the next day, by turning two or three studies of the nude, which might have shocked her, with their faces to the wall. A foreign language can not be properly acquired unless the learner has great opportunities for conversation.
As we pursued our course Zoraida kept her head between my hands so as not to see her father, and I felt that she was praying to Lela Marien to help us. We might have made about thirty miles when daybreak found us some three musket-shots off the land, which seemed to us deserted, and without anyone to see us.
To which Zoraida made answer, "A Christian I am, but it is not I who have placed thee in this position, for it never was my wish to leave thee or do thee harm, but only to do good to myself." "And what good hast thou done thyself, daughter?" said he. "Ask thou that," said she, "of Lela Marien, for she can tell thee better than I."
No! what struck Madame de Nailles was the suddenness of this transformation. Jacqueline evidently took no further interest in Marien; she had apparently no longer any affection for herself she, who had been once her dear little mamma, whom she had loved so tenderly, now felt herself to be considered only as a stepmother. Fraulein Schult, too, received no more confidences. What did it all mean?
Word Of The Day