United States or Mayotte ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Since I'd seen Gracey Storefield again every other woman seemed disagreeable to me. I tore up the letter and threw it away, hoping I had done for ever with a woman that no man living would ever have been the better for. 'Glad you take it so quiet, Jim says, after holding his tongue longer than he did mostly. 'She's a bad, cold-hearted jade, though she is Jeanie's sister.
'May the devil fly away with her! said Jim savagely, 'for a bad-minded, bad-hearted jade; and then he'd wish he'd left her where she was. She'd be no chop-down there even. I think sometimes she can't be Jeanie's sister at all. They must have changed her, and mothered the wrong child on the old woman. My word! but it's no laughing matter. What's to be done?
He would have his way, whatever the cost, and no warning or entreaty would move him. For the rest of that day she had to stand by in impotent anguish, and watch Jeanie's martyrdom. During the afternoon he sat alone with her, conducting the intellectual examination which Jeanie had so dreaded, reprimanding, criticizing, scoffing at her ignorance.
A half-pronounced and timid "No," was her answer. "What! not remember moonlight, and Muschat's Cairn, and Rob and Rat?" said he, with the same sneer; "Your memory needs redding up, my jo." If Jeanie's distresses had admitted of aggravation, it must have been to find her sister under the charge of such a profligate as this man.
So poor Jeanie's ailments were given none but home treatment to alleviate them, and it seemed to Avery that her strength had dwindled almost perceptibly of late.
And, Reuben, when ye do win to the speech o' him, mind a' the auld man's bits o' ways, for Jeanie's sake; and dinna speak o' Latin or English terms to him, for he's o' the auld warld, and downa bide to be fashed wi' them, though I daresay he may be wrang. And dinna ye say muckle to him, but set him on speaking himself, for he'll bring himsell mair comfort that way.
He stretched his free hand up to her, drawing her down to his side, and as she knelt also he passed his arm about her, pressing her to him. Jeanie's eyes were upon them both, dying eyes that shone with a mystic glory. They saw the steadfast resolution in Piers' face as he held his wife against his heart. They saw the quivering hesitation with which she yielded.
More and more the conviction grew upon her that those moments of tenderness had been no more than a part of the game he had summoned her to play for Jeanie's sake. He had called it a hollow bargain. He had declared that for no other reason would he have proposed it to her. And now that the farce was over, he had withdrawn from it. He had said that he had not found it easy.
The old woman held a candle in one hand, and a knife in the other. Levitt appeared behind her, whether with a view of preventing, or assisting her in any violence she might meditate, could not be well guessed. Jeanie's presence of mind stood her friend in this dreadful crisis.
That afternoon we concocted a letter to him, and I watched Jeanie's eyes with a towel in my hand while she wrote it, so that no tears should fall on it, and that night she travelled twenty miles down the Great Western line to post it, returning by the next up-train.
Word Of The Day