United States or British Indian Ocean Territory ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Lois's vivid eye caught the full meaning of the woman beside him. The face hurt her: not fair, as Polston called it: vapid and cruel. She was dressed in yellow: the colour seemed jeering and mocking to the girl's sensitive instinct, keenly alive to every trifle. She did not know that it is the colour of shams, and that women like this are the most deadly of shams.
Polston called his eyes hungry: it was a savage hunger that sprang into them now; a gray shadow creeping over his set face, as he looked at her, in that flashing moment. The phaëton was gone in an instant, leaving her alone in the muddy road. One of the men looked back, and then whispered something to the lady with a laugh.
He had to bear with him but for a few moments, however. They met a crowd of workmen at the corner, one of whom, an old man freshly washed, with honest eyes looking out of horn spectacles, waited for them by a fire-plug. It was Polston, the coal-digger, an acquaintance, a far-off kinsman of Holmes, in fact. "Curious person making signs to you, yonder," said Cox; "hand, I presume."
For that night, at least, Holmes swept his soul clean of doubt and indecision; one of his natures was conquered, finally, he thought. Polston, if he had seen his face as he paced the street slowly home to the mill, would have remembered his mother's the day she died. How the stern old woman met death half-way! why should she fear? she was as strong as he.
But I hated religion, knowin' her. Well, ther's a day of makin' things clear, comin'." They had reached the corner now, and Polston turned down the lane. "Yoh'll think o' Yare's case?" he said. "Yes. But how can I help it," Holmes said, lightly, "if I am like my mother here?" putting his hand to his mouth. "God help us, how can yoh?
For that night, at least, Holmes swept his soul clean of doubt and indecision; one of his natures was conquered, finally, he thought. Polston, if he had seen his face as he paced the street slowly home to the mill, would have remembered his mother's the day she died. How the stern old woman met death half-way! why should she fear? she was as strong as he.
Being proud of her slave, she let the hand flutter down now somehow with some flowers it held until it touched his hard fingers, her cheek flushing into rose. The nerveless, spongy hand, what a death-grip it had on his life! He did not look back once at the motionless, dusty figure on the road. What was that Polston had said about starving to death for a kind word? Love?
Lois's vivid eye caught the full meaning of the woman beside him. The face hurt her: not fair, as Polston called it: vapid and cruel. She was dressed in yellow: the color seemed jeering and mocking to the girl's sensitive instinct, keenly alive to every trifle. She did not know that it is the color of shams, and that women like this are the most deadly of shams.
Lois used to tell him, while she feebly tried to set his room in order, of all her plans, of how Sam Polston was to be married on New-Year's, but most of all of the Christmas coming out at the old school-master's: how the old house had been scrubbed from top to bottom, was fairly glowing with shining paint and hot fires, how Margret and her mother worked, in terror lest the old man should find out how poor and bare it was, how he and Joel had some secret enterprise on foot at the far end of the plantation out in the swamp, and were gone nearly all day.
"My father was outside," said Holmes, some old bitterness rising up in his tone, his gray eye lighting with some unrevenged wrong. Polston did not speak for a moment. "Dunnot bear malice agin her. They're dead, now. It wasn't left fur her to judge him out yonder. Yoh've yer father's eyes, Stephen, 'times. Hungry, pitiful, like women's. His got desper't' 't th' last.
Word Of The Day