United States or Jamaica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Then she went to Edwin, with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance, but more of pride. She took off her things, to go down to supper. Norah saw her no more that night. Beside having a door into the passage, the sleeping-nursery opened out of Mr and Mrs Openshaw's room, in order that they might have the children more immediately under their own eyes.

Mr Openshaw's face contracted into hard lines; grew like what it was before he had known his wife and her child. He rang the bell, even before his uncle had done speaking. It was answered by the housemaid. 'Mary, was anyone here last night, while we were away? 'A man, sir, came to speak to Norah. 'To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he stay? 'I'm sure I can't tell, sir.

'There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let's have our tea together. I am glad to find you are as good and sensible as I took you for. And this was Alice Wilson's second wooing. Mr Openshaw's will was too strong, and his circumstances too good, for him not to carry all before him. He settled Mrs Wilson in a comfortable house of her own, and made her quite independent of lodgers.

Oh, sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly of'; and very sick and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. To her surprise, Mr Openshaw raised her up very tenderly. Even the policeman helped to lay her on the sofa; and, at Mr Openshaw's desire, he went for some wine and sandwiches; for the poor gaunt woman lay there almost as if dead with weariness and exhaustion.

He was loud and decided; she soft and yielding. They had two children; or rather, I should say, she had two; for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs Openshaw's child by Frank Wilson, her first husband.

That little helpless child always carried about by one of the three busy women of the house, or else patiently threading coloured beads in the chair from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever move the great grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful, expression, giving to the small delicate face a look beyond its years the soft plaintive voice dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a child caught Mr Openshaw's attention in spite of himself.

"You will excuse me for not waiting for you," said he; "I have, I foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young Openshaw's." "What steps will you take?" I asked. "It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. I may have to go down to Horsham, after all." "You will not go there first?" "No, I shall commence with the City.

'I don't understand you, sir, said Norah, her master's kind and sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The policeman had left the room at Mr Openshaw's desire, and they two were alone. 'You know what I mean, when I say someone is gone who will never come back. I mean that he is dead! 'Who? said Norah, trembling all over.

The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who could just prattle, and to whom his father delighted to speak in the broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep up what he called the true Saxon accent. Mrs Openshaw's Christian name was Alice, and her first husband had been her own cousin.