FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  
he should dogmatize so much as to rouse our apathy to denounce his principles, we will remember that we are British, and can be sweet-blooded in opposition. Perhaps he may change, even tra le tre ore a le quattro: electioneering should be a lesson. From my recollection of Blackburn Tuckham, he was a boisterous boy.' 'He writes uncommonly clever letters home to his aunt Beauchamp. She has handed them to me to read,' said the colonel. 'I do like to see tolerably solid young fellows: they give one some hope of the stability of the country.' 'They are not so interesting to study, and not half so amusing,' said Cecilia. Colonel Halkett muttered his objections to the sort of amusement furnished by firebrands. 'Firebrand is too strong a word for poor Nevil,' she remonstrated. In that estimate of the character of Nevil Beauchamp, Cecilia soon had to confess that she had been deceived, though not by him. CHAPTER XVII. HIS FRIEND AND FOE Looking from her window very early on a Sunday morning, Miss Halkett saw Beauchamp strolling across the grass of the park. She dressed hurriedly and went out to greet him, smiling and thanking him for his friendliness in coming. He said he was delighted, and appeared so, but dashed the sweetness. 'You know I can't canvass on Sundays! 'I suppose not,' she replied. 'Have you walked up from Bevisham? You must be tired.' 'Nothing tires me,' said he. With that they stepped on together. Mount Laurels, a fair broad house backed by a wood of beeches and firs, lay open to view on the higher grassed knoll of a series of descending turfy mounds dotted with gorseclumps, and faced South-westerly along the run of the Otley river to the gleaming broad water and its opposite border of forest, beyond which the downs of the island threw long interlapping curves. Great ships passed on the line of the water to and fro; and a little mist of masts of the fishing and coasting craft by Otley village, near the river's mouth, was like a web in air. Cecilia led him to her dusky wood of firs, where she had raised a bower for a place of poetical contemplation and reading when the clear lapping salt river beneath her was at high tide. She could hail the Esperanza from that cover; she could step from her drawing-room window, over the flower-beds, down the gravel walk to the hard, and be on board her yacht within seven minutes, out on her salt-water lake within twenty, closing her wings in a F
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Cecilia
 

Beauchamp

 

window

 

Halkett

 

replied

 
westerly
 
gleaming
 

border

 
forest
 

Laurels


opposite

 

Nothing

 
beeches
 

stepped

 
series
 

descending

 
grassed
 
walked
 

gorseclumps

 

backed


dotted

 

mounds

 

Bevisham

 

higher

 

Esperanza

 

drawing

 

lapping

 

beneath

 

flower

 

minutes


twenty

 
closing
 

gravel

 

reading

 

contemplation

 
fishing
 

suppose

 
passed
 

island

 
interlapping

curves
 

coasting

 
raised
 
poetical
 

village

 

handed

 
colonel
 

letters

 
boisterous
 

writes