United States or Italy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It's all along of you that this boy's here." As if dominated by the stronger will, Annabel's eyes turned toward the bundle. And inwardly praying that this was the moment for her coup d'état, Persis started to her feet. "I b'lieve that's Thad calling. 'Fraid like as not, that I'm going to kidnap his son and heir. You hold the baby, Mis' Sinclair, till I see what's wanted."
At last his wife stopped crying and began trying to find her pocket. "Here, take mine, Persis," he said kindly, offering her his handkerchief, and she took it and dried her eyes with it. "There was one of those fellows there the other night," he spoke again, when his wife leaned back against the cushions in peaceful despair, "that I liked the looks of about as well as any man I ever saw.
For all her chilling air, she glanced toward the door to assure herself that they were not overheard. "It is true I wrote you," she continued with a hauteur which would have reduced a less buoyant nature to instant dumbness. "But I hardly see that this constitutes a ground for considering ourselves acquaintances." So far from being crushed, Persis smiled.
Then she could say what she chose of her "little girl" without appealing to the risibilities of her audience. Persis, distracted for a moment by the false alarm of a twisting seam, soon returned to her guns. With a skill Annabel was forced to admire, she veiled her cruelty in compliment. "Diantha is a pretty girl. Pretty and clever with her tongue.
The worthless scrap of green dropped from the young wife's shaking hands. "Why, what makes you think " "That letter," Persis explained steadily, "was written to a Mr. Washington Thompson. I don't wonder he shortens it to a W., do you? To have Washington for your first name must be a good deal like having the Washington monument in your front yard, sort of overpowering.
Do you like pink kisses?" "Pink?" he repeated, too startled by the choice of adjectives to realize how long it had been since any one had kissed him. "Aunt Persis let me have some jelly," Celia explained. "I like to lick my lips off, but I didn't so I could give you a nice pink kiss." He put one hand hastily to his forehead, thereby verifying his worst suspicions. It was sticky. Joel groaned.
It occurred to him that it would be a fitting return for Persis' perverseness for him to retire to his room and refuse to leave except at her humble and reiterated entreaty. It is unfortunate that so often the course of conduct consistent with one's dignity involves a painful sacrifice.
Then he hurried away, "without giving me a chance to say 'no," said "she that was" Persis Tame, afterward. "So I had to marry with him, as you might say. But I've never seen cause to regret it, I've got a first-rate of a hum, and Captain Ben makes a first-rate of a husband.
The knocking at the side door and the thumping overhead blended in a travesty on the anvil chorus, the staccato tapping of somebody's knuckles rising flute-like above the hammering of Joel's cane. TO some temperaments the double summons would have proved confusing, but Persis Dale dropped her sewing and moved briskly to the door, addressing the ceiling as she went. "'Twon't hurt you to wait."
This epistolary weight off her conscience, Persis went up-stairs to bed, and for the first time in twenty years, she went without a good night to the photograph in the blue plush frame. Justin Ware arrived in town the day Persis finished Mildred's wedding dress. She heard the news from Joel, who had been at the station when the train came in.
Word Of The Day