United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But this is not the aspect of the scene which grips and moves us. Our attention is centred on Thaddeus's struggle to take his wife's misdeed upon himself; and his failure cannot be described as a peripety, seeing that it sinks him only one degree lower in the slough of despair. Like the scene in Mrs. Dane's Defence, this is practically a piece of judicial drama a hard-fought cross-examination.
That the girls were faithful, of course, he did not doubt; the regularity with which letters addressed to him at home and they were numerous reached him convinced him of that; but the hamper containing the week's wash, which Ellen and Jane were to send, and which had been expected on Thursday of the preceding week, had failed for once to arrive; the boy had worn one dress four days, Thaddeus's collars were getting low, and altogether he was just a little uneasy about things.
Thaddeus's brow grew thoughtful again. It wrinkled into a half- dozen lines as he asked: "Why didn't you speak of this before?" "It ain't for me to be telling tales, Mr. Perkins," she said. "All cooks as I've lived with is queer like, and I didn't think any more about it." "All right," said Thaddeus. "You may go. Only, Mary, don't speak of the plates again to Margaret.
The scene of the opera is laid in Austria, and the first act introduces us to the château and grounds of Count Arnheim, Governor of Presburg, whose retainers are preparing for the chase. After a short chorus the Count enters with his little daughter Arline and his nephew Florestein. He hears Thaddeus's story and induces him to join them.
Thaddeus's assumed confidence in the rightness of everything, rather than his explanations, was convincing to Mrs. Perkins, and in a very short while she was sleeping the sleep of the just and serene; but to Thaddeus's eye there came no more sleep that night, and when morning came he rose unrefreshed. There were two problems confronting him.
Mary was evidently excited over something, but over what Thaddeus could not, of course, determine at that time. Later in the day, however, the cause of her perturbation came out, and Thaddeus's effort to keep Bessie from anxiety over the occurrence of the night before was rendered unavailing. It was at luncheon. The table was set in a most peculiar fashion.
"What's his name?" asked Phillips. Thaddeus's mind was a blank. He could not for the life of him think what name a butler would be likely to have, but in a moment he summoned up nerve enough to speak. "Grimmins," he said, desperately. "Sounds like a Dickens' character," said Robinson. "Does he cost you very much?"
"It was very thoughtful of Norah to look after John's work, knowing how important it was to you." Fortunately Thaddeus was out of breath trying to shine up the other pointed-toe shoe, so that his only reply to this was a look, which Bessie, absorbed as she was in putting the studs in Thaddeus's shirt, did not see.
On Thaddeus's departure Bessie's cheerfulness also deserted her, and for the first time in her life she felt that it would do her good if she could fly out at somebody somebody, however, who was not endeared to the heart of Thaddeus, or too intimately related to her own family, which left no one but Norah upon whom to vent the displeasure that she felt.
Afternoon and evening went by without developments, and at about eleven o'clock every light in the house was extinguished, and the whole family, from the head of the house to the cook, had apparently retired. At half-past eleven, however, there were decided signs of life within the walls of Thaddeus's home.
Word Of The Day