United States or Pakistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Whatever the worthy woman's feelings were, and however much the respectable butler, whose name was Primmins, might have been astonished in his own stately mind at Miss Vancourt's greeting of her father's old servant, Miss Vancourt herself was quite unconscious of any loss of dignity on her own part. "I am so glad!" she repeated; "It's like finding a friend at home to find you, Spruce!
Therewith my father, drawing his dressing-robe round him in more stately folds, followed Mrs. Primmins upstairs into a room very carefully darkened. "How are you, my dear?" said my father, with compassionate tenderness, as he groped his way to the bed. A faint voice muttered: "Better now, and so happy!" And at the same moment Mrs.
"You really must sit down!" she said again, gently persuading him into his chair, wherein he sank heavily, like a stone, though his face shone with alertness and vigour. "Primmins!" and she addressed that functionary who had been standing in the background watching the little scene; "Bring some glasses of port wine." Primmins vanished to execute this order.
Here my mother entered, rosy from a shopping expedition with Mrs. Primmins; and in her joy at hearing that I could stay to dinner, all else was forgotten. By a wonder, which I did not regret, Uncle Jack really was engaged to dine out.
With a profound sigh Roxmouth glanced at Longford. That gentleman smiled a superior smile. "We should like to see Miss Fosby." Primmins at once threw open the door more widely. "This way, if you please!" In another moment they were ushered into the presence of Miss Fosby, who, laying aside her embroidery, rose with punctilious ceremony to receive them.
Primmins was dreadfully afraid of my father, why, I know not, except that very talkative social persons are usually afraid of very silent shy ones. She cast a hasty glance at her master, who was beginning to evince signs of attention, and cried promptly, "No, ma'am, it was not the dear boy, bless his flesh, it was I!" "You? How could you be so careless? and you knew how I prized them both.
"'Corporis officium est quoniam omnia deorsum. "The business of a body like yours, Mrs. Primmins, is to press all things down, to keep them tight, as you will know one of these days, that is, if you will do me the favor to read Lucretius, and master that material philosophy of which I may say, without flattery, my dear Mrs. Primmins, that you are a living illustration."
Primmins again rushes, or rather rolls in the movement natural to forms globular and spheral into my father's room with "Sir, sir, it is a boy!" Whether my father asked also this time that question so puzzling to metaphysical inquirers, "What is a boy?"
The duck also has arrived, under wing of Mrs. All privileges are valuable in proportion to the exclusiveness of their enjoyment. Now, from the moment the first carp had eaten the bread my father threw to it, Mr. Caxton had mentally resolved that a race so confiding should never be sacrificed to Ceres and Primmins.
"Why," said my uncle, reddening, "I have tried to improve myself with studies a little more substantial. And," he added with a sly smile, "there will be your great book for many a long winter to come." "Um!" said my father, bashfully. "Do you know," quoth my uncle, "that Dame Primmins is a very intelligent woman, full of fancy, and a capital story-teller?"
Word Of The Day