United States or Marshall Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
What did it matter? There was her brother sleeping with his wife in another room near at hand. In Willow Springs, Iowa, her father was at just this moment pumping a pail of water at the well by the kitchen door. In a moment he would carry it into the kitchen to set it on the box by the kitchen sink. Rosalind's cheeks were flushed.
Friendship was no longer a dream, and Rosalind, her head against the red pillow, was beginning to think that dreams were best. "If we choose, we may travel always in the Forest, where the birds sing and the sunlight sifts through the trees." These words of Cousin Louis's in his introduction to the old story pleased Rosalind's fancy.
Rosalind's story of Trevison's difficulties did not have the effect that she anticipated. "The poor, dear boy!" said Hester and she seemed genuinely moved. Rosalind gulped hard over the shattered ruins of this last hope and got up, fighting against an inhospitable impulse to order Hester away.
Hilary spoke jauntily, with hungry, unquiet, seeking eyes that would not meet Rosalind's. She was afraid that Rosalind would find out that she wanted to be cured of being miserable, of being jealous, of having inordinate passions about so little. Rosalind, in some ways a great stupid cow, was uncannily clever when it came to being spiteful and knowing about you the things you didn't want known.
I wanted to come home and tell you before it happened," she said speaking in a low clear voice. She wondered if Melville Stoner could hear her declaration. Nothing happened. The chair in which Rosalind's mother sat had been rocking slowly back and forth and making a slight creaking sound. The sound continued. In the house across the street the baby stopped crying.
His own trouble; the loss of the last near relative he had in the world; his own sickly health, chaining him down when he would fain seek comfort in action; the uncertainty of his position as heir of Maxfield; the hopeless task before him of finding his lost brother; Rosalind's indifference to his affection all seemed now to pile up in one great mountain to oppress him, and he half envied the gentle dead her quiet resting-place.
"It's it's beautiful!" cried Mellicent ecstatically; while Peggy's beauty-loving eye turned from one detail to another with delighted approbation. "Really," she said to herself in astonishment, "I couldn't have done it better myself! It's quite admirable!" and as Rosalind's face peered inquiringly at her beneath the canopy of flowers, she nodded her head, and smiled generous approval. "Beautiful!
The remedy is in your own hands," retorted Peggy coolly; but at this Rosalind's ill-humour broke out in another direction. "Peggy Saville, I think it is vewy mean and unkind of you to wefuse to visit me when I asked you, and then to wush up from the countwee to stay with new fwiends who have not half the claim upon you that I have. If you would go to the Wollos', why not to me?"
Hilary all but said so. "It is a great interest to Neville, taking up her medical studies again," was all she could really say. She is playing a lot of tennis, and beats them all." How absurdly her voice rang when she spoke of Neville or Jim! It always made Rosalind's lip curl mockingly. "Wonderful creature! I do admire her. When I'm her age I shall be too fat to take any exercise at all.
"It isn't at all," she persisted, with a fine blush. "If you will only be nice and kind, and help me to some Rosalind's clothes. You have only to write to your tailors, or send home for a spare suit of clothes, with a little managing yours would just fit me, you're not so much taller, and then we could start, like two comrades, seeking adventures. Oh, how glorious it would be!"
Word Of The Day