United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He did not dream Madame Ewans could ever be different from what he had seen her. He could not imagine her otherwise dressed or amid any other surroundings. He knew nothing whatever of women; this one had seemed motherly to him, and it was a mother such as Madame Ewans he would have liked to have. But how his heart beat and his brow burned as he pictured this imaginary mother a reality!
"Oh! it's nothing," she said; "only I have put some powder in my hair. Like the Empress," she added, and broke into another smile. As she was drawing on her gloves, a ring was heard, and the maid came in to tell her mistress that Monsieur Delbèque was waiting to see her. Madame Ewans pouted and declared she could not receive him, whereupon the maid spoke a few words in a very peremptory whisper.
"And your father?" "He is in America. I have never seen him. You've lost. Let's begin again." Servien, who felt interested in Madame Ewans because of the superb boxes of chocolates she used to bring to school for her boy, put another question: "You love her very much, your mother I mean?"
"Shall we be honoured by your presence to-night at the Bouffes?" asked the gentleman. "No!" replied Madame Ewans, and pushed the two children forward with the tip of her sunshade. Stepping out gaily, they soon arrive under the chestnuts of the Tuileries, cross the bridge, then down the river-bank, over the shaky gangway, and so on to the steamer pontoon.
A fat boy, standing by himself with his face to the wall with the unconcern born of long familiarity with this form of punishment, clapped his two hands to his mouth trumpetwise and shrieked: "Ewans, you're wanted in the parlour." The usher marched up: "Garneret," he ordered, "you will stand half an hour this evening at preparation speaking when you were forbidden to. Ewans, go to the parlour."
But I see you are taking a boarding-school out for a walk a regular boarding-school, 'pon my word! You take pupils, eh? I congratulate you. Make men of 'em, my dear, make men of 'em." Madame Ewans frowned and replied with a curl of the lips: "I am with my son and one of my son's friends." The gentleman threw a careless look at one of the lads Jean Servien as it happened.
Word Of The Day