FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99  
100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   >>   >|  
ve cared a terrible lot about marryin' you ever since." "But I'm not the kind of person, at all. I'm not saving, I'm not thrifty." "I hope you're wrong--but even if you're not, well, I want you terrible hard just the same. You see I can always keep an eye on the expenses," he hastened to add, and made a desperate clutch at her hand. The red worsted mitten came off in his grasp, and he stood eyeing it ruefully while he waited for her answer. "I've determined never, never to marry," she replied. His chest heaved. "I knew you felt that way about the other's but I thought somehow I was different," he rejoined. "No, it's not the man, but marriage that I don't like," she responded, shaking her head. "It's all work an' no play wherever I've seen it." "It's terrible for a woman to feel like that, an' goes against God an' nature," he answered. "Have you ever tried prayin' over it?" "No, I've never tried that, because you see, I don't really mind it very much. Please give me my glove now, here is Judy's cottage." "But promise me first that you'll try prayin' over your state of mind, an' that I may go on hopin' that you will change it?" Turning with her hand still outstretched for the glove, she glanced roguishly from his face to the shuttered window of the Hatch cottage. "Oh, I don't mind your hoping," she answered, composing her expression to demureness, "if only you won't hope--very hard." Then, leaving him overwhelmed by his emotions, she tripped up the narrow walk, bordered by stunted rose-bushes, to the crumbling porch of Solomon's house. At the door a bright new gig, with red wheels, caught her eye, and before the mischievous dimples had fled from her cheek, she ran into the arms of the Reverend Orlando Mullen. Her confusion brought a beautiful colour into his cheeks, while, in a chivalrous effort to shield her from further embarrassment, he turned his eyes to the face of Judy Hatch, which was lifted at his side like the rapt countenance of one of the wan-featured, adoring saints of a Fra Angelico painting. No one--not even the nurse of his infancy--had ever imputed a fault either to his character or to his deportment; for he had come into the world endowed with an infallible instinct for the commonplace. In any profession he would have won success as a shining light of mediocrity, since the ruling motive of his conduct was less the ambition to excel than the moral inability to be peculiar. His mi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99  
100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
terrible
 

cottage

 

answered

 
prayin
 

Reverend

 

shield

 

embarrassment

 

Orlando

 

brought

 

beautiful


chivalrous

 
colour
 

confusion

 
Mullen
 
effort
 

cheeks

 

caught

 

bordered

 

stunted

 

bushes


narrow

 

marryin

 

emotions

 

tripped

 

crumbling

 
wheels
 

mischievous

 

bright

 

Solomon

 

dimples


success

 

shining

 
profession
 

instinct

 

commonplace

 

mediocrity

 

ruling

 

inability

 

peculiar

 

motive


conduct
 
ambition
 

infallible

 

endowed

 

featured

 
adoring
 

saints

 
countenance
 
overwhelmed
 

lifted