United States or Jersey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Brinkley; very nice people I met last summer at Portland. Their father General Wrayne has been building some railroads down East, and they're very nice people; but they don't know any one any ladies and they've been looking at the pictures ever since they came. They're very good pictures; but it isn't an exhibition!" He broke down with a laugh. "Why, of course, Mr.
Bellingham graphically depicted his meeting with Colonel Frobisher the last time he was out on the Plains, and Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne discovered to their great satisfaction that he was the brother of Mrs. Stephen Blake, of Omaba, who had come out to the fort once with her husband, and captured the garrison, as they said. Mrs.
Corey made these utterances in response to a sharper pressure of Mrs. Brinkley's fan on his arm. Dan was opening a way through the crowd before them for two ladies, whom he now introduced. "Mrs. Frobisher, Mrs. Brinkley; and Miss Wrayne." Mrs. Brinkley cordially gave her hand to the ladies, and said, "May I introduce Mr. Corey? Mr. Mavering, let me introduce you to Mr. Corey."
She could not condescend to specify; it would be ridiculous, and as it was, she felt her dignity hopelessly shaken. The tears came into her eyes. "Yes. And neither of them wants me they haven't got any use for me. Mrs. Frobisher is married already, and Miss Wrayne took the trouble last night to let me feel that, so far as she was concerned, I hadn't made it all right, and couldn't.
He could no longer make or mar any success; and Charles Bellingham was so notoriously amiable, so deeply compromised by his inveterate habit of liking nearly every one, that his notice could not distinguish or advantage a newcomer. He and Corey took the ladies down to supper. Mrs. Brinkley saw them there together, and a little later she saw old Corey wander off; forgetful of Miss Wrayne.
Frobisher and Miss Wrayne let him go with a certain shade the lightest, and yet evident of not wholly satisfied pique: women know how to accept a reparation on account, and without giving a receipt in full. Mrs. Brinkley gave him her hand with an effect of compassionate intelligence and appreciation of the sacrifice he must have made in leaving Alice. "May I congratulate you?" she murmured.
She saw Dan Mavering, but not the Pasmers, and then, when Corey forgot Miss Wrayne, she saw Dan, forlorn and bewildered looking, approach the girl, and offer her his arm for the return to the drawing-room; she took it with a bright, cold smile, making white rings of ironical deprecation around the pupils of her eyes. "What is that poor boy doing, I wonder?" said Mrs. Brinkley to herself.
And as if that wasn't enough, I could see by the looks of those other women old Corey forgot Miss Wrayne in the supper-room, and I had to take her back that I hadn't made it right with them, even; they were as hard and smooth as glass. I'd ruined myself, and ruined myself for nothing." Mavering flung Boardman's chair over, and seated himself on its rungs.
She'll enjoy the joke, and so will Miss Wrayne. They're jolly and easygoing; they won't mind." "How long have you known them?" "I met them on Class Day, and then I saw them the day after I left Campobello." Dan laughed a little. "How, saw them?" "Well, I went to a yacht race with them. I happened to meet them in the street, and they wanted me to go; and I was all broken up, and I Went."
Alice stood there, beautiful, pathetic, austere; and Dan had halted in the spot to which he had advanced, when her eye forbade him to approach nearer. He did not mean to joke, and it was in despair that he cried out: "But which, Alice? There are two of them." "Two?" she repeated vaguely. "Yes; Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne. You can't give me up to both of them." "Both?" she repeated again.
Word Of The Day