Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
Her fears were complicated by a suspicion that, under his professional eagerness for success, lay the knowledge that Miss Verney's favour hung on the victory. It was that, perhaps, which gave a feverish touch to his ambition; and Mrs. Peyton, surveying the future from the height of her material apprehensions, divined that the situation depended mainly on the girl's view of it.
Benevolent smiles played like summer lightning across his flushed face. He raised his tankard slowly and with attentive steadiness. "Gentlemen," he said in a high voice, "we have eaten and we have drunken. Dick Verney's wine is as old as the hills and as mellow as sunlight.
Custom stales all good things, but how delicious they taste at first! The privilege of fagging is not, however, unadulterated bliss. When Warde said to Caesar, "Well, Desmond, how do you like ordering about your slave?" Desmond replied, ruefully, "Well, sir, little Duff has broken my inkstand, spilt the ink on our new carpet, and let Verney's bullfinch escape.
Argemone's appearance, and their late conversation, had started a new covey of strange fancies. Lancelot followed them over hill and dale, glad to escape a moment from the mournful lessons of that evening; but even over them there was a cloud of sadness. Harry Verney's last words, and Argemone's accidental whisper about 'a curse upon the Lavingtons, rose to his mind.
At the town florist's he rapped a timid signal to the driver to stop, and, glowing with anticipation, spryly shuffled into the warm, scented air of the little shop. Here, to the smiling clerk's astonishment, he ordered a bunch of violets to be delivered Christmas morning to "de young lady wif de gray eyes whut's at Major Verney's." "Surely," smiled the clerk, "you don't want that on the card?"
Trader, planter, magistrate, member of the council of state, soldier, author on occasion, and fine gentleman all rolled into one, after the fashion of the times; Cavalier of the Cavaliers, hand in glove with Governor Berkeley, and possessed of a beautiful daughter, for whose favor one half of the young gentlemen of the counties of York and Gloucester were ready to draw rapier on the other half, Colonel Verney's world was a fair and stirring one, and gave him plentiful food for meditation on a fine afternoon.
Pauline said, when she was ready to start. "It is really silly of you to stay at home, dearest. I wouldn't have accepted Madame Verney's invitation if I had thought you would not go. But you see how it is, don't you? Her cousin is at the French Embassy, and she is sure to get to know a lot of people. She may introduce me to a great many pupils."
Miss Verney's companion having presently advised her of the lapse of time, there ensued a general leave-taking, at the close of which Dick accompanied the ladies to their carriage. Darrow was meanwhile blundering into his greatcoat, a process which always threw him into a state of perspiring embarrassment; but Mrs.
His shrewd gray eyes under their tufts of grizzled hair were half closed in a lazy contentment, born of the hour, the pipe, and the drink. The world went very well just then in Colonel Verney's estimation. His crop of the preceding year had been a large and profitable one; this year it bid fair to be still more satisfactory.
Peyton's voice trembled with the completeness of her triumph. "I suppose his reason for not speaking is that he has scruples." "Scruples?" "He feels that to use the design would be dishonest." Miss Verney's eyes fixed themselves on her in a commiserating stare. "Dishonest? When the poor man wished it himself? When it was his last request? When the letter is there to prove it?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking