FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   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   >>   >|  
nt, apparently, for some constituency in the Province of Quebec. The small crowd of persons collected, all eminent in the Canadian world, and some beyond it, examined their hostess of the afternoon with a kindly amusement. Elizabeth had sent round letters; Anderson, who was well known, it appeared, in Winnipeg, had done a good deal of telephoning. And by the letters and the telephoning this group of busy people had allowed itself to be gathered; simply because Elizabeth was her father's daughter, and it was worth while to put such people in the right way, and to send them home with some rational notions of the country they had come to see. And she, who at home never went out of her way to make a new acquaintance, was here the centre of the situation, grasping the identities of all these strangers with wonderful quickness, flitting about from one to another, making friends with them all, and constraining Philip to do the same. Anderson followed her closely, evidently feeling a responsibility for the party only second to her own. He found time, however, to whisper to Mariette, as they were all about to mount the car: "Eh bien?" "Mais oui--tres gracieuse!" said the other, but without a smile, and with a shrug of the shoulders. _He_ was only there to please Anderson. What did the aristocratic Englishwoman on tour--with all her little Jingoisms and Imperialisms about her--matter to him, or he to her? While the stream of guests was slowly making its way into the car, while Yerkes at the further end, resplendent in a buttonhole and a white cap and apron, was watching the scene, and the special engine, like an impatient horse, was puffing and hissing to be off, a man, who had entered the cloak-room of the station to deposit a bundle just as the car-party arrived, approached the cloak-room door from the inside, and looked through the glazed upper half. His stealthy movements and his strange appearance passed unnoticed. There was a noisy emigrant party in the cloak-room, taking out luggage deposited the night before; they were absorbed in their own affairs, and in some wrangle with the officials which involved a good deal of lost temper on both sides. The man was old and grey. His face, large-featured and originally comely in outline, wore the unmistakable look of the outcast. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth trembled, so did his limbs as he stood peering by the door. His clothes were squalid, and both they and hi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Anderson

 

people

 
making
 

telephoning

 

letters

 

Elizabeth

 

special

 

watching

 

trembled

 

entered


bloodshot
 

hissing

 

puffing

 

impatient

 

engine

 

clothes

 

squalid

 

matter

 

Imperialisms

 

Jingoisms


stream

 

guests

 

resplendent

 

buttonhole

 

peering

 

slowly

 

Yerkes

 

deposit

 

luggage

 
deposited

taking

 
emigrant
 

featured

 

absorbed

 

involved

 

temper

 

officials

 

affairs

 

wrangle

 

unnoticed


passed

 

unmistakable

 

inside

 

looked

 

approached

 

arrived

 

station

 
bundle
 

glazed

 

comely