United States or Afghanistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He was a handsome fellow too, this Lawrence, six feet three, with a curly brown head and the frankest blue eyes that ever looked pityingly, almost wonderingly, on the small and weak things of the earth. And the boy, Wikkey Whiston, was a crossing-sweeper.
A terrible fit of coughing proceeding from the sofa awoke Lawrence next morning, startling him into sudden recollection of the evening's adventure; and when the shutters were opened Wikkey looked so fearfully wan and exhausted in the pale gray light, that he made all speed to summon Mrs. Evans, and to go himself for the doctor.
Wikkey's beseeching eyes rose up before Lawrence, and he stammered out hastily: "No no thank you; not just at present. I'll think about it;" and the doctor took his leave, wondering whether it could be possible that Mr. Granby intended to keep the boy; he was not much used to such Quixotic proceedings. Lawrence stood debating with himself. "Should he send Wikkey to the workhouse?
"I didn't mean for to wake you; but I wish I wish I hadn't boned them coppers off Jim; it makes me feel so bad when I think as the King saw me;" and Wikkey buried his face in the kind arm which encircled him, in uncontrollable grief.
It was a winter's morning in 1869, bright as it is possible for such a morning to be in London, but piercingly cold, and Wikkey had brushed and re-brushed the pathway which scarcely needed it, the east wind having already done half the work just to put some feeling of warmth into his thin frame before seating himself in his usual place beneath the lamp-post.
It seems to me that it is intended that Wikkey should be led upwards from the human to the Divine. For others a different plan of teaching might be better, but I think this is the right key to his development; and, moreover, I firmly believe that you will be shown how to use it."
By degrees Wikkey became thoroughly initiated in the mysteries of the toilette, and other amenities of civilized life, and being a sharp child, with a natural turn for imitation, he was, at the end of a week or two, not entirely unlike those young gentlemen in his ways, especially when his conversation became shorn of the expletives which had at first adorned it, but which, under Mrs.
As Lawrence encountered Wikkey's penetrating gaze, he felt glad that his mind was made up; and when the question came in a low, gasping voice, "I say, guvner, are you going to send me away?" he sat down on the end of the sofa and answered: "No, Wikkey, you are going to stay with me." "Always?" Lawrence hesitated, not knowing quite what to say.
Wikkey stood looking after him, and then picked up the penny, holding it between his cold hands, as though it possessed some warming properties, and muttering: "It seems fur to warm a chap to look at him;" and then he sat down once more, still pondering over the apparition that had so fascinated him.
Each succeeding evening, a fresh story about the King was related, eagerly listened to, and commented on by Wikkey with such familiar realism as often startled Lawrence, and made him wonder whether he were allowing irreverence; but which at the same time, threw a wondrously vivid light on the histories which, known since childhood, had lost so much of their interest for himself: and certainly, as far awakening first the boy's curiosity, and then his love, went, the method of instruction answered perfectly.
Word Of The Day