"It is something that I have had upon my mind for years, and I did not like to tell it to you."
"Accept my congratulations, Brother Yü-ts'un; I've now come, with the express purpose of giving you the welcome news!"
Barbara turned suddenly, and placed her hand upon her brother's mouth. "Be silent for your life," she whispered, "here's papa."
When they landed, they were conducted by chief officers of the court to a pavilion which faced the western sky, now glowing like an opal with every shade of the iris, and then becoming of a light green colour varied only by some slight clouds burnished with gold. A troop of maidens brought flowers as bright as themselves, and then a company of pages advanced, and kneeling, offered to the Queen chocolate in a crystal cup.
So from Joyce Mr. Carlyle obtained no clue, one way or the other. The following day he sought out Otway Bethel.
"Doctor!" called the captain.
"I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she could only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her except only me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words was impossible. All you did was to lie very quiet, tucked up into your mother's side; and as regular as the time-piece went, wide came your eyes and your mouth to be fed. If your nature had been cross or squally, 'baby's coffin No. 7' would have come after all the other six, which the thief of a carpenter put down on his bill as if it was so many shavings.
"And on that side, that broken field, those long pieces of ice more or less joined at their edges?"
"What did you know of Thorn in those days?" asked the counsel.
"I didn't call it a very hard day," said Mrs. Carbuncle.
"Psha; promised! If they put me in a witness-box of course I must tell. When you come to this kind of work, promises don't go for much. I don't know that they ever do. What is a broken promise?"
"Who of us hasn't seen a tiao?" they all exclaimed, "let's have that purse of yours, and have done with it!"
"Yes, it is," lady Feng smiled, "so you might as well take it away at once; for if it gets mislaid, I've nothing to do with it."
"That is very true," said Lord Roehampton, "truer perhaps than you imagine." Then rather abruptly he said, "You know Colonel Albert very well?"
"No doubt we do," I was obliged to answer. "It is very sad to think of, as soon as one has dined. But does that reflection occur, as it should, at the proper time to be useful — I mean when we are hungry?"
But his brother was still in his mind. He opened Mrs. Presty's letter — on the chance that it might turn the current of his thoughts in a new direction.
"At any rate it can be tried for a month or two, and we shall see how it works," he musingly observed.
She cried more softly, leaning upon his arm. "Happiness? Would it be happiness for you?"
"Read," he answered, "what the most compassionate of all Teachers has said, in the Sermon on the Mount."
Hsiang-yün produced her handkerchief, and, while screening her mouth with it, burst out into a loud fit of laughter.
These assurances were still being uttered when they saw Lin Chih-hsiao's wife walk in. "The family of the Chen mansion of Chiang Nan," she explained, "arrived in the capital yesterday. To-day, they're going into the palace to offer their congratulations. But they've now sent messengers ahead to come and bring presents and pay their respects."
The dreary interval of expectation, after the departure of the carriage, was brightened by a domestic event.
"Not precisely. I gathered that it would be very early in the afternoon."
"But the thieves thought that the diamonds were in the box?"
He set out, and on reaching the mouth of that tributary he learned that the chief of these capitaes da mato was then in the neighborhood.
When old goody Liu heard the mention made by lady Feng of their hardships, she imagined that there was no hope; but upon hearing her again speak of giving her twenty taels, she was exceedingly delighted, so much so that her eyebrows dilated and her eyes gleamed with smiles.
"This is ingenious!" they exclaimed in chorus, when they heard the result of her labour. "Why not write them out, and let us have a look at them?"
And then, reckoning the true letters according to their alphabetical order, he read:
"I daresay you are right, though men get accustomed to everything, and the Greenlanders do not appear to me so unfortunate as the workmen of our large towns; they may be unfortunate, but they are certainly not unhappy. I say unhappy, but the word does not translate my thought, for if these people have not the comforts of temperate countries, they are formed for a rude climate, and find pleasures in it which we are not able to conceive."
"Look here!" Lin Tai-yü smiled, "what a girl she is! Had you, when sending that fellow the other day to bring ours, given him these also to bring along with him, wouldn't it have saved trouble? Instead of that, here you fussily bring them yourself to-day! I presumed that it was something out of the way again; but is it really only these things? In very truth, you're a mere dunce!"
A silent courtesy from Madame Vine. She turned away her head and gasped for breath.
"Do you hear that, Florestan?" said the lady to her son; "I told you we had a friend. Thank Mr. Wilton."
For here was the very sea itself, with furious billows panting. Before us rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness, torn by the screeching squalls, and tossed in clashing tufts and pinnacles. And into these came, sweeping over the shattered chine of shingle, gigantic surges from the outer deep, towering as they crossed the bar, and combing against the sky-line, then rushing onward, and driving the huddle of the ponded waves before them.
The happy group moved then into the tall herbage, across the thickets and under the bushes, chatting and laughing. In front, when the brambles were too thick, the negro, felling-sword in hand, cleared the way, and put thousands of birds to flight.
"My lady, you're also talking a lot of trash!" P'ing Erh smiled. "She, mayn't be Madame Wang's child, but is it likely that any one would be so bold as to point the finger of scorn at her, and not treat her like the others?"
"Quite out of the question," repeated Lizzie.
Unfurled do still remain in spring the green and waxlike leaves.
In 1827 Lister-Maw, in 1834 and 1835 Smyth, in 1844 the French lieutenant in command of the "Boulonnaise," the Brazilian Valdez in 1840, the French "Paul Marcoy" from 1848 to 1860, the whimsical painter Biard in 1859, Professor Agassiz in 1865 and 1866, in 1967 the Brazilian engineer Franz Keller-Linzenger, and lastly, in 1879 Doctor Crevaux, have explored the course of the river, ascended many of its tributaries, and ascertained the navigability of its principal affluents.
"On my word of honor."
And then Endymion entered into the whole case, the desirableness of being with Lord Roehampton before the meeting of parliament, of assisting him, working with him, acting for him, and all the other expedient circumstances of the situation.
"There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way," the Major said. "You are a British subject, I suppose, and you must obey the laws of the country. A man has confessed to you a murder — no matter whether it was committed twenty years ago or two minutes; no matter whether it was a savage, cold-blooded, premeditated crime, or whether there were things to palliate it. Your course is the same; you must hand him over. In fact, you ought never to have let him go."
"How long ago did you leave your fazenda?"
"Indeed!" said Endymion.
"That's a fine game of forfeits!" Old lady Chia cried, with a smile. "It just suits the time of the year."
He found the rumor touching her fortune to be correct, and from that time was seldom apart from the Crosbys. They were as pleased to have his society as he was to be in theirs, for was he not the Count von Stalkenberg? And the other visitors at Stalkenberg looking on with envy, would have given their ears to be honored with a like intimacy.
Lady Feng threw the card in front of Mrs. Hsüeh. At a glance, Mrs. Hsüeh perceived that it was the two spot. "I don't fancy this card," she smiled. "What I fear is that our dear senior will get a full hand."
"To my taste, it's all right," put in Tai-yü. "But what your palates are like, I can't make out."
Little thought Lady Isabel that that very piano was Mr. Carlyle's, and not hers. The earl coughed, and exchanged a smile and a glance with his guest.
The woman made a strange answer to this request. "That's curious," she said.
"So it is better," said the countess. "Don't go into heroics, William. You are quite old enough to know that she had brought misery upon herself, and disgrace upon all connected with her. No one could ever have taken notice of her again."
"Went on rowing, and held a council. This time I came out as the clever one of the party. The men were following us in the dark; they would have to guess at the direction we had taken, and they would most likely assume (in such weather as we had) that we should choose the shortest way across the lake. At my suggestion we changed our course, and made for a large town, higher up on the shore, called Tawley. We landed, and waited for events, and made no discovery of another boat behind us. The fools had justified my confidence in them — they had gone to Brightfold. There was half-an-hour to spare before the next train came to Tawley; and the fog was beginning to lift on that side of the lake. We looked at the shops; and I made a purchase in the town."
MANOEL WAS in love with the sister of his friend Benito, and she was in love with him. Each was sensible of the other's worth, and each was worthy of the other.
"When folk act childishly, they must be treated as children. I always thought you were mad when you married before, but I shall think you doubly mad now."
"I know nothing about my daughter," Mrs. Presty answered, "except that she had a bad night. Thinking, no doubt, over your advice," the old lady added with a mischievous smile.
Whilst the doctor was examining with all an antiquarian's enthusiasm the vestiges of previous winterings, Hatteras was occupied in piling together the various provisions and articles of fuel, which were only to be found in very small quantities. The following day was employed in transporting them on board. The doctor, without going too far from the ship, surveyed the country, and took sketches of the most remarkable points of view. The temperature rose by degrees, and the heaped-up snow began to melt. The doctor made an almost complete collection of northern birds, such as gulls, divers, eider-down ducks, which are very much like common ducks, with white breasts and backs, blue bellies, the top of the head blue, and the remainder of the plumage white, shaded with green; several of them had already their breasts stripped of that beautiful down with which the male and female line their nests. The doctor also perceived large seals taking breath on the surface of the ice, but could not shoot one. In his excursions he discovered the high water mark, a stone upon which the following signs are engraved:
"There's something more I'd like to add," lady Feng pursued smiling. "I think that it's fair enough that you, worthy ancestor, should, besides your own twenty taels, have to stand two shares as well, the one for cousin Liu, the other for cousin Pao-yü, and that Mrs. Hsüeh should, beyond her own twenty taels, likewise bear cousin Pao-ch'ai's portion. But it's somewhat unfair that the two ladies Mesdames Hsing and Wang should each only give sixteen taels, when their share is small, and when they don't subscribe anything for any one else. It's you, venerable senior, who'll be the sufferer by this arrangement."
This insinuation induced Lin Tai-yü to smile a couple of sarcastic smiles. "Yes, your friendship with me has been of no avail," she repeated; "for how can I compare with those whose manifold qualities make them fit matches for you?"
This considerable rise in the life of Endymion, after the first excitement occasioned by its announcement to him had somewhat subsided, was not contemplated by him with unmixed feelings of satisfaction. It seemed to terminate many relations of life, the value of which he had always appreciated, but which now, with their impending conclusion, he felt, and felt keenly, had absolutely contributed to his happiness. There was no great pang in quitting his fellow-clerks, except Trenchard, whom he greatly esteemed. But poor little Warwick Street had been to him a real home, if unvarying kindness, and sedulous attention, and the affection of the eyes and heart, as well as of the mouth, can make a hearth. He hoped he might preserve the friendship of Waldershare, which their joint intimacy with the prince would favour; but still he could hardly flatter himself that the delightful familiarity of their past lives could subsist. Endymion sighed, and then he sighed again. He felt sad. Because he was leaving the humble harbour of refuge, the entrance to which, even in the darkest hour of his fallen fortunes, was thought somewhat of an indignity, and was about to assume a position which would not have altogether misbecome the earliest expectations of his life? That seems unreasonable; but mankind, fortunately, are not always governed by reason, but by sentiment, and often by very tender sentiment.
"Of whose family is she the mistress?" inquired Pao-yü of Hsi Hsüeh, as he jumped up, "that you all pay such deference to her. I just simply had a little of her milk, when I was a brat, and that's all; and now she has got into the way of thinking herself more high and mighty than even the heads of the family! She should be packed off, and then we shall all have peace and quiet."
Superior to interruption, the admirable foreman went on:
He put the slip of paper into his pocket. "Now I've got it," he said, "suppose I keep it?"
"Look out, Pen, he's got teeth that could snap an iron bar in two."
"I should wonder if you did. But you will let me earn your love, Isabel?"
"Joam," she said, "have I been deceived? Had you no idea that this marriage would one day take place, and that it would give her every chance of happiness?"
"I was born and reared a gentlewoman," answered Lady Isabel.
This proposal set Hsüeh P'an musing, "With the dressing I've recently had," he pondered, "I cannot very well, at present, appear before any one. Were the fancy to take me to get out of the way for half a year or even a year, there isn't a place where I can safely retire. And to sham illness, day after day, isn't again quite the right thing! In addition to this, here I've reached this grown-up age, and yet I'm neither a civilian nor a soldier. It's true I call myself a merchant; but I've never in point of fact handled the scales or the abacus. Nor do I know anything about our territories, customs and manners, distances and routes. So wouldn't it be advisable that I should also get ready some of my capital, and go on a tour with Chang Te-hui for a year or so? Whether I earn any money or not, will be equally immaterial to me. More, I shall escape from all disgrace. It will, secondly, be a good thing for me to see a bit of country."
I told him that I would put her on the plank, if he had any portrait of her showing her dress and her attitude. Without saying what he had, he led me to the house, and stood behind me, while I went inside. And then he could not keep his voice as I went from one picture of his darling to another, not thinking (as I should have done) of what his feelings might be, but trying, as no two were at all alike, to extract a general idea of her.
Old goody Liu gave suitable reply to each of her questions. "Who'd ever have imagined it," she proceeded to tell dowager lady Chia; "not only are the human beings in the city grand, but even the birds are grand. Why, the moment these birds fly into your mansion, they also become beautiful things, and acquire the gift of speech as well!"
