FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69  
70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   >>   >|  
, and I'm always scolding him. He can't straighten his right arm, and has very little power in it. He was badly thrown last winter, but directly he got up he was out again on Kitty." "Living up to his reputation." Lawrence flicked the ash from his cigar. "I should have known him anywhere by his eyes." "He has kept very young, hasn't he? An uneventful life without much anxiety does keep people young," philosophized Laura. "I feel like a mother to him. But you'll see more of him this afternoon." "So I shall," said Lawrence, "if he isn't detained at Countisford." CHAPTER V The reason why Lawrence found Isabel scrubbing Mrs. Drury's floor was that Dorrie's pretty, sluttish little mother had been whisked off to the Cottage Hospital with appendicitis an hour earlier. She was in great distress about Dorrie when Isabel, coming in with the parish magazine, offered to stay while Drury went to fetch an aunt from Winterbourne Stoke. When Drury drove up in a borrowed farm cart, Isabel without expecting or receiving many thanks dragged her bicycle to the top of the glen and pelted off across the moor. Her Sunbeam was worn and old, so old that it had a fixed wheel, but what was that to Isabel? She put her feet up and rattled down the hill, first on the turf and then on the road, in a happy reliance on her one serviceable brake. Her father was locked in his study writing a sermon: Isabel however tumbled in by the window. She sidled up to Mr. Stafford, sat on his knee, and wound one arm round his neck. "Jim darling," she murmured in his ear, "have you any money?" "Isabel," said Mr. Stafford, "how often have I told you that I will not be interrupted in the middle of my morning's work? You come in like a whirlwind, with holes in your stockings--" Isabel giggled suddenly. "Never mind, darling, I'll help you with your sermon. Whereabouts are you? Oh!--'I need not tell you, my friends, the story we all know so well'--Jim, that's what my tutor calls 'Redundancy and repetition.' You know quite well you're going to tell us every word of it. Darling take its little pen and cross it out--so--with its own nasty little cross-nibbed J--" "What do you mean by saying you want money," Mr. Stafford hurriedly changed the subject, "and how much do you want? The butcher's bill came to half a sovereign this week, and I must keep five shillings to take to old Hewitt--" "I want pounds and pounds." "My de
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69  
70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Isabel

 

Lawrence

 

Stafford

 

mother

 

darling

 

sermon

 

Dorrie

 

pounds

 

sidled

 

sovereign


murmured

 

window

 
serviceable
 

reliance

 

Hewitt

 
tumbled
 

writing

 

father

 

shillings

 
locked

middle

 

nibbed

 

friends

 

Whereabouts

 
Redundancy
 

butcher

 

subject

 
repetition
 

Darling

 

morning


whirlwind

 

suddenly

 
giggled
 

changed

 

hurriedly

 

stockings

 

interrupted

 
philosophized
 
people
 

uneventful


anxiety

 

afternoon

 

CHAPTER

 

reason

 

Countisford

 

detained

 

thrown

 
winter
 

straighten

 

scolding