ᐸ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?ᐳ
ᐸsamples n="ENG18870"ᐳ
ᐸsampleᐳᐸp n="ENG188701241"ᐳ"Do you think she came on purpose, then?" asks Essie, her eyes opening as round in alarmed surprise as a baby's when a grown-up person makes ugly faces at it.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701242"ᐳHe shrugs his shoulders slightly. "Cannot say, I'm sure. Conny is not much in the habit of burning the midnight oil in the pursuit of knowledge generally. If it was accident, she came in at a wonderfully à propos, or rather mal à propos, moment. Tell me," he says, crossing over to her side of the road, and fixing frankly-asking eyes upon her; "I may be mistaken—it is a misfortune to which I am often incident—but I could not help thinking that, just as that unlucky candle appeared round the corner last night, you were going to tell me something—something about yourself? I thought I saw it in your face. I think I deserved some little reward for raking up for your behoof the ashes of that old fire that I burnt my fingers at so badly once."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701243"ᐳEsther still remains silent, but turns her long neck from one side to the other with a restless, uneasy motion.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701244"ᐳ"Are lamplight and the small hours indispensable accessories " he asks, with gentle pleading in look and words—"or could not you tell me as well now?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701245"ᐳ"Tell you what" she says, turning round sharp upon him, and snapping, as a little cross dog snaps at the heels of the passer-by—" must I invent something? "ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701246"ᐳ"Are you sure that it is necessary to invent?" he asks, scanning the fair, troubled face with searching gaze.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701247"ᐳShe pulls a bunch of nuts out of the hedge from among their rough-ribbed green leaves, and begins to pick them out of their sheath. "What am I to tell you?" she says, petulantly, a suspicion that he may have heard a rumour of her engagement crossing her mind: " that I live in an old farm-house with my brother Jack, and that we are very hard up—you know already; that 'Sudrydachi' is Welsh for 'How do you do ' and that our asparagus has answered very badly this year?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701248"ᐳ"Of course, I cannot force your confidence," he answers, rather coldly.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701249"ᐳ"Why do you insist upon my having something to confide? What reason have you for supposing that I have?" she cries, with increased irritation.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701250"ᐳ"None whatever, but what you yourself have given me!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701251"ᐳ"I!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701252"ᐳ"Yes, you; not your words, but your face now and then. Don't think me impertinent. You know what unhappy reason I have had to be suspicious. But tell me" (trying his best to get a look round the corner into the averted, perturbed face of his companion)—"tell me whether there is not something between you and—and—that fellow that gave you the prayer-book?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸ/sampleᐳ
ᐸsampleᐳᐸp n="ENG188703047"ᐳ"I cannot!—I cannot!" she cries, vehemently; "don't ask me! Why didn't I die? When they saw I was getting well, they ought to have killed me. Oh, I wish they had!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703048"ᐳ"I'm rather glad, on the whole, they did not," he answers, gravely; and so, with one final effort, he being strong, and she being weak, he obtains possession of her two hands, and her face lies bare, unshaded—dyed with an agony of shame—clothed with great beauty—under the hungry tenderness of his happy eyes.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703049"ᐳ"To think of making one's last dying speech and confession, and then not dying after all," she says, in torments of confusion, yet unable to restrain an uneasy laugh. "It is too disgraceful! I shall never get over it! Never !—NEVER !— NEVER!!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703050"ᐳ"Time, which mitigates all afflictions, may mitigate yours," he replies, gaily, unable to resist the exquisite pleasure of teasing her.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703051"ᐳShe turns from him with a petulant movement of head and shoulder. "Why don't you go?" she cries, the angry tears flashing into her eyes; "I hate the sight of you!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703052"ᐳAt that he grows grave. "Essie," he says, slipping his arms round her as she sits, shrinking away from him in the deep chintz chair, "in that awful moment, when you thought—and God knows I thought so too—that we were saying 'goodbye' to one another for always, the barriers that your wretched false pride had built up between us were knocked down; try as you may, you can never build them up again."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703053"ᐳ"I knocked down plenty of barriers, I'm aware," she answers, ruefully. "You need not remind me of that!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703054"ᐳ"Never to be built up again any more—never any more!" he says, his mirth swallowed up in great solemn joy.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703055"ᐳShe has fallen forwards into his embrace; he holds her little trembling form against his heart—a posture to which she submits, chiefly because it affords her an opportunity of hiding her face upon his shoulder.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703056"ᐳ"Never any more!" she repeats, mechanically, and then there is silence, save for the thrush, that trills ever his high tender lay. Presently Essie stirs, and whispers, with uneasiness, "St. John!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703057"ᐳ"Well?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703058"ᐳ"You won't tell any one, will you?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188703059"ᐳ"Tell them what?—that you and I are going to be married? By this time to-morrow I hope to have told every one I meet: I am not so selfish as to wish to keep such good news to myself."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸ/sampleᐳ
ᐸsampleᐳᐸp n="ENG188701972"ᐳ"Peculiar!" repeats Esther, rather resentfully, raising her great eyes in unfeigned, displeased surprise to her companion's face. "Am I so very odd-looking, Mrs. Brandon? I don't think I can be, for no one ever told me so before!"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701973"ᐳ"I did not say odd-looking, my dear," returns Mrs. Brandon, sharply; "please don't put words into my mouth."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701974"ᐳ"If people came to buy cloaks, they would surely be thinking of how they were looking, not how I looked," says Esther, not yet quite recovered from her annoyed astonishment; "my appearance, beyond the mere fact of my being tall, could not be of much consequence one way or another."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701975"ᐳMrs. Brandon takes off and lays down her spectacles the better to point the rebuke she is about to administer.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701976"ᐳ" Esther," she says, severely, "since you insist on my explaining myself more clearly, I must tell you that I think a girl should be steadier in conduct, and more decidedly imbued with religious principles than I have any reason for supposing you to be, before she is exposed to the temptations to which a young and handsome woman is liable in one of those sinks of iniquity, our great towns."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701977"ᐳEsther flings up her head with an angry gesture. "I really don't see what temptations a person even as unsteady and irreligious as I am," she says, contemptuously, "could be exposed to in a haberdasher's shop. Temptation, in a woman's mouth, always implies something about men; and in a place specially devoted to woman's dress, one would be less likely to see them than in any other spot on the face of the earth."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701978"ᐳ"If you are so much better informed on the subject than a person of treble your years and experience," says Mrs. Brandon, resuming her spectacles, and beginning to knit faster than ever, "I have, of course, no more to say."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701979"ᐳAn apposite retort rises prompt and saucy to Esther's lips, clamouring for egress through those sweet red gates; but the recollection of Mrs. Brandon's weak tea and legs of mutton, and the obligations thereto hanging, drives it back again. She leans her elbow on her knee, and elevates her straight dark brows.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701980"ᐳ"The question is," she says, gravely, "can you suggest anything better? When one has no money, and none of the acquirements that command money, one must take what one can get, and be thankful."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG188701981"ᐳBut Mrs. Brandon is silent, counting her stitches, buried in calculations as to whether her stocking-leg has attained the length and breadth suited to the dimensions of one of her son's large limbs.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸ/sampleᐳ
ᐸsampleᐳᐸp n="ENG1887072"ᐳ" No."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887073"ᐳ"You are certain?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887074"ᐳ"Certain. Whatever you do, I shall love you to-day, and to-morrow, and always," says the young fellow, very solemnly; and his eyes go away past her, through the window, and up to the blue sky overhead, as if calling on the great pale vault to be witness between him and her.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887075"ᐳAs for her, her prosaic soul has wandered back to the mutton; she takes the opportunity of his eyes being averted to steal a glance at the clock. Apparently, however, he has eyes in the back of his head, for he says hastily, with rather a pained smile: "You are longing for me to go."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887076"ᐳ" No—o."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887077"ᐳ"I ought not to have come at this time of night. I ought to have waited till to-morrow, I know."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887078"ᐳ"It is rather late."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887079"ᐳ"But to-morrow seemed such a long time off, that I thought I must know the worst or the best before the sun came up again. I don't quite know which it is now; which is it, Esther?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887080"ᐳ"It's neither the one nor the other; it's the second best," she answers, all smiles again at seeing some prospect of her admirer's departure, and forgetting, with youthful heedlessness, the price at which that departure has been bought. "It is that I really am very much obliged, though, all the same I wish you would think better of it, and that I'll try; I will, really; don't look as if you did not believe me."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887081"ᐳSo with this half-loaf he goes, passes away through the little wooden porch, that is so low it looks as if it were going to knock his tall head, past the stables, and through the oak woods, homeᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG1887082"ᐳAs saith that most delicious of love poems that makes us all feel immoral as we read it. It is the hour when chanticleer retires to his perch in the henhouse, lowers his proud tail, sinks his neck into his breast, and goes to sleep between his two fattest wives. It is the hour when animal life and wild humanity retire to bed; the hour when tamed humanity sits down to dinner. The more we advance in civilisation the farther back we push the boundaries of sleep and forgetfulness. When we reach our highest point of culture, I suppose we shall hustle the blessed, the divine Nepenthe, off the face of the earth altogether.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸ/sampleᐳ
ᐸsampleᐳᐸp n="ENG18870212"ᐳ"I beg your pardon; this machine makes such a noise that I did not catch what you said."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870213"ᐳ"I was only wishing that mother could see you now."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870214"ᐳ"It is a pleasure she enjoys pretty frequently. Why now particularly?"ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870215"ᐳ"She would see how thrifty and housewifely you can be."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870216"ᐳ"I am glad she does not, then," answers the girl, drily, beginning to work again faster than ever, and flushing with annoyance; "she would form a most erroneous estimate of me. I dislike particularly to be found by people in one of my rare paroxysms of virtue; they take it for my normal state, and judge and expect of me accordingly."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870217"ᐳ"I shall tell her that, at all events, my judgment of you was nearer the truth than hers," says Robert, triumphantly.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870218"ᐳEsther laughs awkwardly.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870219"ᐳ"I don't know whether you are aware of it, but you are conveying to my mind the idea that your mother has been pronouncing a very unfavourable verdict upon me and my character."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870220"ᐳ"She thinks you are too pretty and lively, and—and—" (frivolous had been the word employed by Mrs. Brandon, but Robert cannot find it in his heart to apply it to his idol)—"too fond of society to care about being useful in tame, humdrum, everyday ways."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870221"ᐳEsther gives her head a little impatient shake.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870222"ᐳ"Mrs. Brandon adheres to the golden axiom, so evidently composed by some one to whom beauty was sour grapes, that it is better to be good than pretty; an axiom that assumes that the one is incompatible with the other."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870223"ᐳSo speaking she relapses into a chafed silence, and he into his vigilant dumb observation of her. At the end of a quarter of an hour, as he still shows no signs of moving, finding the present position of affairs no longer tolerable, Miss Craven jumps up, flings down her heap of huckaback on the floor, and says abruptly, with a sort of forced resignation:ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870224"ᐳ"I will come to the wood, if you wish; it will be all the same a hundred years hence."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870225"ᐳ"I am perfectly happy as I am," he answers with provoking good humour, looking up in blissful unconsciousness at her charming cross face, and the plain yet dainty fit of her trim cheap gown.ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸp n="ENG18870226"ᐳ"But I am not," she rejoins brusquely; "indoors it is stifling to-day; please introduce me as quickly as possible to that breeze you spoke of; I have not been able to find a trace of one all day."ᐸ/pᐳ
ᐸ/sampleᐳᐸ/samplesᐳ