United States or Comoros ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Have you any news in the way of a happy issue from all your afflictions? I have left Wales for good. Love as always, C. D. P." These hastily scribbled words brought a healing joy to Mavis's heart. She read and re-read them, pressing her baby to her heart as she did so. As a special mark of favour, Jill was permitted to kiss the letter.
Then blind rage possessed her. "Why should this common brat, which, even at this early age, carried his origin in his features, live, while my sweet boy is beneath the ground in Pennington Churchyard?" she asked herself. It was cruel, unjust. Mavis's rage was such that she was within measurable distance of dashing the baby to the ground.
During the short meal, neither husband nor wife said much. Mavis wondered if this taciturnity were due to any suspicions they might entertain of Mavis's unwedded state. But when Mrs Trivett came upstairs with her, she sat on the bed and burst into tears.
"Oh, you damn beast!" cried Miss Toombs again. "You were always lucky!" "Lucky!" echoed Mavis. "To go and have a little baby and not me. Oh, it's too bad: too bad!" Mavis looked inquiringly at her friend to see if she were sincere. The next moment, the two foolish women were weeping happy tears in each other's arms over the unconscious, sleeping form of Mavis's baby.
They had not met since Mavis's marriage to Harold, Miss Toombs refusing to answer Mavis's many letters and always being out when her old friend called. Mavis ran against Miss Toombs by the market-place; her friend looked in worse health than when she had last seen her. "Good morning," said Mavis. "Don't talk to me," cried Miss Toombs. "I hate the sight of you." "No, you don't.
Mavis's audience were uncomfortable; it was an axiom of their existence to shy at any expression of emotion. The Devitts longed for the appearance of the fat butler, who would announce that dinner was served. But to-night his coming was delayed till Mavis had spoken. "Chance threw Harold in my way," she went on.
It also told her that she was the best and most charming girl he had ever met; meeting with other women only the more strengthened this conviction. Mavis's heart leapt with a great joy. So long as she was easily first in her lover's eyes, nothing else mattered. She had been foolish ever to have done other than implicitly trust him.
"I've been waiting quite ten minutes," Mavis began angrily, as the person came in view. "'Ave yer?" "Look here, I'm not used to be answered like that," Mavis began; but she was wasting her breath; the servant went on her way in complete disregard of Mavis's wrath. Mavis thought of trying another entrance, when a young woman came downstairs.
The intimate association of mind and body being what it is, and Mavis's offspring being dependent on the latter for its well-being, it was no matter for surprise that her baby developed disquieting symptoms. Hence, Mavis's new cause for concern.
"I won't trouble you." Mavis went down to the passage, taking with her the evil-smelling lamp: the spilled oil upon the outside of this greased Mavis's fingers. To save her strength, she cut the cords with which her trunk was bound with a kitchen knife, borrowed from Mrs Gowler for this purpose. She took from this box such articles as she might need for the night.
Word Of The Day