United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He is always at your house, and he certainly would not come unless you were the attraction." "What a very pretty jacket you have on." "Do you think so? My maid made it." "Then I shall get Anastasia to take a lesson from Flore " "So, then, my dear, I count on your friendship to refrain from bringing trouble in my house."
Flore felt so secure of her power that, unfortunately for her, and for the bachelor himself, it did not occur to her to make him marry her. Towards the close of 1815, Flore, who was then twenty-seven, had reached the perfect development of her beauty. Plump and fresh, and white as a Norman countrywoman, she was the ideal of what our ancestors used to call "a buxom housewife."
At seventeen, Flore retained that delicacy of feature and form, that distinction of beauty which attracted the doctor, and which women of the world know how to preserve, though it fades among the peasant-girls like the flowers of the field.
"It wouldn't be right, monsieur," said Flore, "to live on sixty francs a month under the nose of an uncle who has forty thousand francs a year, and who has already behaved so kindly to Captain Gilet, his natural relation, here present " "Yes, Philippe," cried the old man, "you must see that!" On Flore's presentation, Philippe made a half-timid bow to Max.
Jean-Jacques softly opened the door and went, still more softly, into the kitchen where she was muttering to herself. "But, Flore," said the poor sheep, "this is the first time I have heard of this wish of yours; how do you know whether I will agree to it or not?" "In the first place," she said, "there ought to be a man in the house.
The Rabouilleuse combated this objection, and proposed that they should fly together to America; but Max, who did not want Flore without her money, and yet did not wish the girl to see the bottom of his heart, insisted on his intention of killing Philippe. "We have committed a monstrous folly," he said.
That my uncle should love you, is all very well," he resumed, holding Flore with a fixed eye; "that you should not love my uncle is also on the cards; but when it comes to your making him unhappy halt! If people want to get hold of an inheritance, they must earn it. Are you coming, uncle?" Philippe saw the eyes of the poor imbecile roving from himself to Flore, in painful hesitation.
Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared. To make him breakfast alone was the punishment he dreaded most; he loved to talk to her as he ate his meals. When he got to the foot of the staircase he was taken with a fit of coughing; for emotion excited his catarrh. "Cough away!" said Flore in the kitchen, without caring whether he heard her or not.
The hall which the little peasant and her uncle admired with such wonder is decorated with wooden carvings of the time of Louis XV., painted gray, and a handsome marble chimney-piece, over which Flore beheld herself in a large mirror without any upper division and with a carved and gilded frame.
What had I done with all that? It seemed to me that a strange voice repeated an old romance that I had long since forgotten: Altra volta gieri biele, Blanch' e rossa com' un flore, Ma ora no. Non son piu biele Consumatis dal' amore. My sorrow was too great; I sprang to my feet and once more began to walk the floor.
Word Of The Day