FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   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   >>   >|  
it was given, told more than a whole embrace from some other women. There are ladies who always kiss their female friends, and always call them "dear." In such cases one cannot but pity her who is so bekissed. Mrs. Orme did not kiss Lady Mason, nor did she call her dear; but she smiled sweetly as she uttered her greeting, and looked kindness out of her marvellously blue eyes; and Lucius Mason, looking on over his mother's shoulders, thought that he would like to have her for his friend in spite of her rank. If Mrs. Orme would give him a lecture on farming it might be possible to listen to it without contradiction; but there was no chance for him in that respect. Mrs. Orme never gave lectures to any one on any subject. "So, Master Lucius, you have been to Liverpool, I hear," said Sir Peregrine. "Yes, sir--I returned yesterday." "And what is the world doing at Liverpool?" "The world is wide awake there, sir." "Oh, no doubt; when the world has to make money it is always wide awake. But men sometimes may be wide awake and yet make no money;--may be wide awake, or at any rate think that they are so." "Better that, Sir Peregrine, than wilfully go to sleep when there is so much work to be done." "A man when he's asleep does no harm," said Sir Peregrine. "What a comfortable doctrine to think of when the servant comes with the hot water at eight o'clock in the morning!" said his grandson. "It is one that you study very constantly, I fear," said the old man, who at this time was on excellent terms with his heir. There had been no apparent hankering after rats since that last compact had been made, and Peregrine had been doing great things with the H. H.; winning golden opinions from all sorts of sportsmen, and earning a great reputation for a certain young mare which had been bred by Sir Peregrine himself. Foxes are vermin as well as rats, as Perry in his wickedness had remarked; but a young man who can break an old one's heart by a predilection for rat-catching may win it as absolutely and irretrievably by prowess after a fox. Sir Peregrine had told to four different neighbours how a fox had been run into, in the open, near Alston, after twelve desperate miles, and how on that occasion Peregrine had been in at the death with the huntsman and only one other. "And the mare, you know, is only four years old and hardly half trained," said Sir Peregrine, with great exultation. "The young scamp, to have ridden her
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   115   116   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   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Peregrine
 

Liverpool

 

Lucius

 
opinions
 

bekissed

 

things

 

winning

 

golden

 

earning

 

sportsmen


reputation

 
constantly
 

morning

 
grandson
 
excellent
 

compact

 

hankering

 

apparent

 

desperate

 

occasion


twelve

 

Alston

 

huntsman

 

exultation

 

ridden

 
trained
 

remarked

 

wickedness

 

predilection

 

neighbours


prowess

 

irretrievably

 
catching
 

absolutely

 

vermin

 

Master

 

lectures

 

subject

 

embrace

 

female


marvellously
 
yesterday
 

returned

 

thought

 

lecture

 
farming
 

ladies

 
friend
 
shoulders
 

chance