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Uncle Bond, most wise and tactful of hosts, had helped. And the Imps, Judith's boys, had helped too. Somehow, Judith and the Imps, Button, so called because of his button mouth, and Bill, cherubic and chubby, had always been inseparably associated in his mind.
Almost from the first, he must have known that Judith, young as she was, was a widow. But it was only lately that he had learnt that her husband had been a sailor like himself, a sailor who had served with distinction, and lost his life, in the Pacific War, the war which he had missed himself, to his own everlasting regret, by a few bare weeks of juniority—. By this time, the throbbing car was sweeping down the opening stretch of the Great North Road, out into the real country.
More as a matter of custom, than of conscious thought, the King slowed down the car. It had become his habit on these occasions, that he should slacken his speed, when he had at last successfully escaped from the town, so that he could attune his mind to his surroundings, and savour to the full his eager anticipation of Judith's joyous welcome.
Suddenly, the ghostly, white painted figure of a signpost, for which he always kept an eye open, flashed into his view, on the left of the road. Once, on a winter evening of fog-thickened darkness, when he had been driving out to see Judith, as he was driving now, the King had grown uncertain of his route. Coming to this signpost, he had been glad to halt, to verify his position.
Clambering up the post, with the ready agility of the sailor, he had struck a match, to discover that the signpost had been used, by some unknown humorist, to perpetrate a jest, with which he had found himself in instant, serious, and wholehearted sympathy. The ordinary place names had been obliterated on the signpost fingers. In lieu of them had been painted, in rude, black letters, on the finger pointing to London, "To Hades," and, on the opposite finger, pointing north, out into the open country, "To Paradise.
The King headed the car now "To Paradise," with an uplifting of the heart, which never failed him, on this portion of the road. A little later, he became aware that he was passing the site of his former breakdown, the breakdown which had first led him, a year ago, to Judith. Soon the familiar turning of the narrow, tree shadowed lane, on the left of the road, came into view.
Swinging the car into the lane, the King, once again, slackened his speed. He drove now with special care. It had become part of a charming game, that he and Judith played, that he should try to drive down the lane, and up to the house, without her hearing his approach. Somehow, he hardly ever won. Somehow, Judith was always on the alert, always expecting him.
But tonight, it almost seemed, in view of the unusual lateness of his arrival, as if he might score one of his rare successes.
The car ran smoothly, and all but silently, down the narrow lane. At the bottom, at the house, the carriage gate, as usual, stood wide open.
In the moonlit drive, the rhododendron bushes and the laburnum trees were in full blossom, just as they had been on that memorable first night, a year ago. The King drove straight up the drive, and round the side of the silent, darkened house, to the garage beyond. The garage door, like the carriage gate, stood wide open. Here, in Paradise, apparently, there was no need to guard against motor thieves.
The King turned the car, and backed it into the garage, beside Uncle Bond's huge Daimler. The silence which followed his shutting off of the engine, was profound, the essential night silence of the country. Flinging off his thick, leather motor coat, his hat, and his goggles, he tossed them, one after the other, into the car.
Then he left the garage, and moved quickly back round the side of the house, treading, whenever possible, on the grassy borders of the garden flower beds, lest the sound of his footsteps should reach Judith, and so warn her of his approach.
Further away, from one of the trees beyond the shadowy garden lawn, another nightingale replied. It was as if the two birds were singing against each other for mastery, pouring out, in a wild, throbbing ecstasy, the one after the other, twin cascades of lovely, liquid, matchless notes. She rose to her feet, to receive him, as he approached, and so stood, tall and slender, just as she had stood on that first, memorable night, a year ago, framed in the ghostly white blossoms of the clematis creeper, which covered the verandah pillars and rail.
She was wearing an evening gown of some material in white satin which had a glossy sheen that shone almost as brightly as the moonlight against the dark background of the silent house.
She was bareheaded, and the light, night breeze had ruffled one or two tresses of her luxuriant jet black hair. Her beautiful, vivid face was flushed. Her deep, dark, mysterious eyes were aglow. Her lips were parted in a little smile of mingled humour and triumph. I would not have it otherwise, even if I could," Judith murmured.
And, tonight, you are wearing his colours? As she spoke, she put out her hand, and deftly rearranged the long ribbons of the red, white, and blue rosette, which the audacious Doris had pinned to his coat, earlier in the night.
With a quick, abrupt movement, which seemed to indicate a sudden change of mood, Judith laid her hands on his shoulders, and turned him a little to the right, so that the moonlight fell full upon his face. You have changed. Your—promotion—has made a difference," she murmured. You look older. You are more serious. And there are little lines, and wrinkles, and a frown there, that was never there before.
The light pressure of Judith's hands on his shoulders, and the sudden acute sense of her nearness which it brought him, disturbed him strangely. Light of foot, and slender, and tall, she moved off then, on tiptoe, without waiting for him, along the shadowy verandah, towards the open window-door of the night nursery near by.
Conscious of a relief, of which he was somehow ashamed, the King followed her, obediently, on tiptoe in turn. In the night nursery, the nightlight, which protected Button and Bill from the evil machinations of ghosts and goblins, was burning dimly, in its saucer, on the mantelpiece, but a shaft of bright moonlight revealed the two cots, at the far end of the room, in which the children lay, fast asleep, side by side. Judith was already bending over the foot of the cots, when the King entered the room.
She looked round at him, finger on lip, as he approached. Button, flushed and rosy, stirred in his sleep, and flung one small arm out of bed, across the snow-white counterpane. Bill, cherubic and chubby, heroically lying on, lest he should suck, his thumb, never moved. Bill wanted to know if Uncle Alfred would be in the procession!
They would do nothing else for the rest of the day, but play at being King. You see, they took their crowns to bed with them. She pointed to two crowns, crude, homemade, cardboard toys, covered with gilt and silver paper, which lay, one on each pillow, beside the sleeping children. A strange thrill, a chill of presentiment, a sense of some impending crisis, which, it seemed, he was powerless to prevent, which he must make no attempt to prevent, ran through the King. He shivered.
Then he leant over the cots, and, very carefully, lest he should wake him, picked up the crown which lay on Button's pillow. Inevitably this toy cardboard crown reminded the King of that other Crown, from which, even here in Paradise, it seemed, he could not escape, that other Crown which had been placed on his head at the climax of the long and exhausting Coronation ceremony, not many hours back. That other Crown had been heavy. This was light. That other Crown had been fashioned by cunning artists in metal, out of the enduring materials judged most precious by man.
This crown had been laboriously patched together by the untried fingers of a child, out of the flimsy, worthless materials furnished by a nursery cupboard. And yet, of the two crowns, was the one more valuable, more worth possessing, than the other? Both were symbols. That other Crown was the symbol of a heavy burden, of a great responsibility. This toy crown was the symbol of a child's fertile imagination, and happy play.
Both were pageantry. The one was the pageantry of a lifetime's isolation, and labour. The other was the pageantry of a child's happy play, for a single summer day.
The irony of the contrast, the irony of his own position, gripped the King, with a thrill of something akin to physical pain. It was not what she did.
It was not what she said. She did nothing. She said nothing. And yet, in one of those strange flashes of intuition, which come, at times, to the least sensitive of men, the King was aware that Judith was not herself; that the accord which had hitherto always existed between them was broken; and that he and she had suddenly become—antagonistic. Judith stood with her hands resting lightly on the brass rail at the foot of Button's cot. Outwardly her attitude was wholly passive.
None the less, as he gazed at her, the King's intuitive conviction of their new antagonism deepened. A wonderful look. A look which amazed, and dumbfounded the King. A look, not of antagonism, as he had anticipated, but, welling up from the depths of her dark, mysterious eyes, a look which spoke, unmistakably, of a woman's tenderness, sympathy, surrender, love.
Mechanically, the King replaced the absurd toy cardboard crown, which he was still holding in his hand, on Button's pillow. Then, dazed, and like a man in a dream, he swung slowly round on his heel, and passed back, through the room, out to the verandah again.
The nightingales were still singing in the garden. The air was heavy with the rich scent of some night-blossoming stock, set in one of the flowerbeds immediately below the verandah rail. The moon was afloat in a little sea of luminous, billowy, drifting clouds. It was for rest, and quiet, and peace, that he had run out to see Judith, and between them, all in a moment, they had blundered, together, into the thick of an emotional crisis.
Where was the white line Judith had always drawn round herself? Where was the barrier of physical reserve she had always maintained inviolable between them? From the first moment of his arrival, he realized now, in some odd way, almost in spite of herself as it were, she had been—alluring! That was unfair, unjust. Judith was not to blame. Judith did not know—how could she know?
She did not know—how could she know? To Judith, he was merely a young naval officer, whose frequent visits, whose unmistakable delight in her society, could have only one meaning. He alone was to blame. By his own act, by his own deliberate concealment of his real identity, he had made this crisis inevitable from the first.
What attitude was he to adopt towards Judith now? Could he ignore what had happened? Could he hope that Judith would allow him to ignore what had happened? Or had the time come when he must reveal his real identity to Judith at last? Would she believe him?
If she believed him, would she be able to forgive his deception? And, even if she forgave him, would not the shadow thrown by his Royal rank irretrievably injure his intimacy with her, with the Imps, and with Uncle Bond? All the spontaneity, the ease, and the naturalness of their relationship would be at an end. Judith and Uncle Bond, were the only people he had ever known who had received him, who had accepted him, for what he was himself, the man who remained when all the adventitious trappings of Royalty had been discarded.
Judith and Uncle Bond, were the only people he ever met, who treated him as an equal. As an equal? Judith, and Uncle Bond, quite rightly, often treated him as their inferior, their inferior in knowledge, in experience, in wisdom. The King leant back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He was suddenly very weary. The reaction following all that he had been through the last twenty-four hours was heavy upon him.
Difficult and dangerous moments, he realized, lay immediately in front of him. And he was in no condition to meet either difficulty or danger. What he wanted now was rest—. It was some little time before Judith reappeared on the verandah. When she did reappear she brought with her a tray on which stood decanters, and glasses, and biscuits, and fruit. A picnic meal, like the one which he had enjoyed on that first memorable night twelve months ago, had become, whenever possible, a feature of the ordinary routine of the King's visits.
It was my fault. It ought not to have happened, tonight, of all nights. You were absolutely worn out, already, weren't you? I might, I ought to, have remembered that. I want you to forget all about it, if you can. Now, how long can you stay? I must be back in town by eight o'clock at the latest," he said. I am glad they are singing for you, tonight.
And then, and then you will go straight to bed. Drawing another chair up to the table, as she spoke, she sat down. Then she proceeded to wait upon him with the easy, unembarrassed grace which gave such an intimate charm to all her hospitality. It will do you good.
Don't bother to talk. I'll do the talking. He had reached a point, he was suddenly conscious now, not far removed from complete exhaustion. He is in rather a bad way, just at present, poor old dear.
The new serial seems to be giving him a lot of trouble. Claire' isn't functioning properly, at the moment. He's locked himself up, for several nights now, without any result. He says it doesn't seem to matter how many candles he lights. It really is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde business with him, you know.
If he is to do any work, he has to be 'Cynthia St. Claire,' and not James Bond. It is plain James Bond we prefer, of course. But it is 'Cynthia' who makes all the money, you know.
He's been running up to town, and knocking about the clubs, a good deal lately. That is nearly always a sign that he is trying to dodge 'Cynthia. Seeing you will do him good. He always gets what he calls a flow on, when you have been over. He wants it badly now. The new story is three instalments behind the time-table already.
Part of his trouble, I think, is that he is working on a plain heroine. He does them alternately, you know. One Plain. The next Ringlets. This one, I understand, is very plain. He misses the chance, I believe, of filling in with purple passages of personal description. You have read some of Uncle Bond's stuff, haven't you? Officially, I am not allowed to. Unofficially, of course, I read every word of it I can get hold of. It's wonderful how he keeps it up, isn't it?
And, every now and then, in spite of 'Cynthia,' he slips in something, without knowing it, which only James Bond could have written. All sorts of unexpected people read him, you know. He says it is the name, and not the stuff, that does the trick.
I think that it is the stuff. People like romance. Uncle Bond gives it to them. At that moment, the sleep, of which the King stood in such dire need, long overdue as it was, touched his eyelids. Judith shot out her arm, and skilfully retrieved the half empty glass, which all but fell from his hand. A little later, when he awoke with a start, conscious of the strange refreshment which even a moment's sleep brings, he found that Judith's hand was in his.
First the lilac, and the chestnuts, and the hawthorn; then the laburnum and the rhododendrons; and now the wild roses are beginning to show in the hedges. The skylarks singing at dawn; the cuckoo calling all day; the thrushes and the blackbirds whistling in the hot afternoon; and the nightingales, singing at night, as they are singing now! The bright sun in the morning, the blue sky, and the green of the trees.
The haymakers at work in the fields. The whir of the haycutting machine. The Imps tumbling over each other in the hay, and calling to me. Diana's foal in the paddock, all long legs, and short tail. The wren's nest in the garden, with six little wrens in it for Jenny Wren to feed.
The afternoon sunlight on the trees; Uncle Bond in the garden, chuckling over his roses; the sunset; the young rabbits, with their white bob-tails, scuttling in and out of the hedges; a patter of rain on the leaves; the breeze in the trees; the twilight; the cool of the evening; and then the blue of the night sky, the stars, and the golden moon, in a bed of billowy, drifting clouds.
The scent of the hayfields, the scent of the flowers; and the nightingales singing, in the garden, as they are singing now! Can you hear what they say? I have been trying to put the nightingales' song into words. Those long, liquid notes—". The night air was heavy with the scent of the night-blossoming stock, in the flowerbed, immediately below the verandah rail.
The nightingales sang as if at the climax of their rivalry for mastery. A huge owl lumbered, rather than flew, across the shadowy garden. For a moment, it seemed to the King, as if the verandah, the house, the garden, and even the night sky, stood away from them, receded, and that he and Judith were alone, together, in infinite space. The King rose obediently to his feet to find, with a certain dull, dazed surprise, that he was stiff and sore, and hardly able to stand.
Dazed as he was, he did not fail to see the look of sharp anxiety which shone, for a moment, in Judith's eyes. I'll see you to your room. They have been working you too hard. Do they never think of—the man—in your Service? And so, glad of Judith's support, and only restfully conscious of her nearness now, the King moved off slowly along the verandah towards the room, at the far end of the silent, darkened house, which had come to be regarded as his room, and, as such, was strictly reserved, "in perpetuity," for his use alone.
You must sleep now, Alfred. Dreamless sleep! Every minute of it! The Imps will call you, as usual, in the morning. A minute or two later, the King found himself alone, inside the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, with an urgent desire for sleep rising within him.
The fresh, fragrant night air blew softly into the room, through the open window door, beyond which he could see, as he sat on the edge of the bed, the gently swaying branches of the garden trees, silhouetted against the dark blue background of the moonlit sky.
The room itself invited rest, induced sleep. Plainly, although comfortably furnished, and decorated throughout in a soothing tint of grey, the room had a spaciousness, even an emptiness, which was far more to the King's taste, than the ornate fittings of that other bedroom of his in the palace, where sleep so often eluded him.
Beyond the absolutely necessary furniture, there was nothing in the room, save the few essential toilet trifles which he kept there. Nothing was ever altered in, nothing was ever moved from, this room, in his absence. It had all become congenial, friendly, familiar. The King undressed, mechanically, in the moonlight, and put on the sleeping suit which lay ready to his hand, on the bed, at his side.
His last thought was one of gratitude to, and renewed confidence in, Judith. How she had humoured, how she had managed him, coaxing and cajoling him, as if he had been a sick child, along the shadowy road to sleep. The emotional crisis which had arisen so inexplicably between them had, as inexplicably spent its force harmlessly. Their friendship was unimpaired. Nothing was altered between them. Nothing was to be altered.
Judith had emphasized that. The Imps were to wake him, in the morning, as usual. He was to see Uncle Bond. All was to be as it had always been. He was glad. He had no wish for, he shrank instinctively from the thought of, any changes, here, in Paradise.
He slept, at once, so soundly, that he never stirred, when, in a little while, Judith slipped noiselessly into the room. Crossing to the bed, she stood, for a moment or two, looking down at him, with all the unfathomable tenderness in her dark, mysterious eyes, which she had asked him to forget, which she had made him forget. Bright sunshine was streaming into the room, through the still open window door. Button and Bill, their faces rosy with health and sleep, and their hair still tousled, as it had come from their pillows, engagingly droll little figures in their diminutive sleeping suits, stood at his bedside, watching him with shining, mischievous eyes.
As he sat up in bed, they flung themselves at him, with triumphant shouts, wriggling and swarming all over him, as they essayed to smother him, under his own bedclothes and pillows. At the end of two or three hilarious, and vivid moments of mimic fight, the King brought the heavy artillery of his bolster to bear on his enemies, smiting them cunningly in the "safe places" of their wriggling, deliciously fresh little bodies, and so driving them, inch by inch, down to the foot of the bed, where, still laughing and gurgling gloriously, they rolled themselves up, to evade his blows, like a couple of young hedgehogs.
Then the King flung his bolster on to the floor, and, reaching out his arms, took his enemies captive, tucking them, one under each arm, and holding them there, kicking and protesting, but wholly willing prisoners. Button, at this point, although suspended under the King's left arm, more or less in mid-air, contrived to wriggle his right hand free, and held it out gravely, to be shaken.
On the strength of his seven years, Button had lately given up kissing in public, and begun to affect the formal manner of the man of the world, in matters of courtesy, as shrewdly observed in Uncle Bond. In order to shake Button's hand, the King was compelled to release Bill from his prison, under his right arm. Bill, whose happy fate it was to be still only five, the true golden age, had no man of the world pretensions, no sense of shame in his affections.
Breaking ruthlessly into Button's formal greeting, he flung both his chubby arms round the King's neck, pulled his head down to be kissed, and then hugged him, with all the force in his lithe little body, chanting in a voice absurdly like Judith's the while—.
We're making the hay. There's a wren's nest in the garden. It's past six o'clock, and it's a lovely summer morning, and you've got to get up, Uncle Alfred. From some dusty pigeonhole in his memory, where it had lain since his own far-away childhood, there floated out into the King's mind, a phrase, a sentence—.
It was a phrase, a sentence, which he could trace back to the Bible lessons, which had been as faithfully and remorselessly delivered, on Sunday afternoons, in the Royal nursery, as in any other nursery of the period, when the strict discipline in such matters, derived originally from the now well-nigh forgotten Victorian era, had not been altogether relaxed.
It was a phrase, a sentence, which had impressed itself upon his childish imagination, and had, for years, stood between him, and his father, the King. His father had been the Lord's Anointed. As a child he had not dared to put forth his hand to touch him! For years, he had lived in awe, almost in fear, of his own father.
Perhaps this was why, even down to the day of his death, the King had always seemed to him to be a man apart, isolated, lonely, remote. Perhaps this was partly why, he himself, now that he was King, was so constantly conscious of his own intolerable isolation. If Button and Bill, particularly Bill, whose chubby arms were, even now, tightening around him, knew his real identity, knew that he was the King, "the Lord's Anointed," not a fairy tale King, not a King of their own childish play, but the King, in whose procession they had thought Uncle Alfred might have a place, would not they live in awe of him, would not they fear him, would not the present delightful spontaneity, the fearlessness, the frank embraces, of their intercourse with him, be irreparably injured?
The bathroom is yours, and the Imps, if you don't mind having them with you, and letting them have a splash," she called out cheerily.
Breakfast in half an hour, on the verandah. We shall be by ourselves. Uncle Bond has had another bad night. He daren't face eggs and bacon in public, he says. Hurry up, Imps. Big sponge, floating soap, and bath towels, at the double.
They haven't had a swim—for ever so long—poor dears. A hilarious, crowded, half hour followed. It was a half hour lit up, for the King, by the blended innocence and mischief which shone in the Imps' eyes, a half hour set to music for him by the Imps' gurgling chuckles, and radiant, childish laughter.
First came the bathroom, where the Imps splashed and twisted in the bath, their brown, wriggling little bodies as lithe and supple as those of young eels; where Bill, lost in a huge bath towel, demanded assistance in drying all the back places and corners; where Button solemnly lathered his chin, just as Uncle Alfred lathered his chin; where Bill was, for one terrible moment, in imminent peril of his life, as he grabbed at the case of shining razors.
Then came the bedroom again, where odd, queer-shaped little garments had to be turned right side out, and buttons and strings had to be fastened, and tied. Innocency, fearlessness, trust, mischief, and laughter were inextricably mingled in it all, with laughter predominating, the radiant laughter of the happy child, ignorant of evil. All this was all as it had always been, and, for that reason, it all made a more poignant appeal, than ever before, this morning, to the King.
One glance at Judith, as he approached the breakfast table, assured the King that it was the old Judith with whom he had to deal. Dressed in white, and as fresh and cool as the morning, Judith was already in her place, at the head of the table, hospitably entrenched behind the coffee pot. Intimate conversation, with the Imps at the table, was out of the question. An occasional glance, a sympathetic smile, was all that could pass between them.
The King was well content to have it so. He was pleasantly conscious that the accord between them, which had been so inexplicably broken, for a time, the night before, was completely restored. Nothing else mattered. Looking at Judith, cool, competent, and self-contained, as she was, he found himself almost doubting the actuality of the emotional crisis of the night before.
Had that scene in the night nursery been a dream? A mere figment of his own fevered, disordered imagination? This, it seemed to the King, was his only real life. That other life of his in the palace, guarded, night and day, by the soldiery, and the police, was the illusion, was the dream. But the meal was, inevitably, a hurried one, and it ended, abruptly, and all too soon, when Judith rose suddenly to her feet, and drove the Imps before her, along the verandah, to say good morning to Diana's foal in the paddock.
It had become an understood thing, part of the usual routine, that the King should never say good-bye. Left alone, the King leant back in his chair, and filled, and lit, his pipe. He always lingered for awhile, beside the disordered breakfast table, on these occasions, so that he could savour to the full, the peace, the quietness, and the beauty of his surroundings. He had learnt to store up such impressions in his memory, so that he could invoke them, for his own encouragement, in his darker hours.
And, it was more than probable, that if he waited a few minutes, Uncle Bond would come out to speak to him. A sentence or two, from Judith's talk the night before, recurred to him now.
Uncle Bond, really worried, was a new, and strange, phenomenon. If he could cheer the little man up, as Judith had suggested, he would be glad.
He owed a great deal to Uncle Bond. At last, the King glanced reluctantly at his watch. It was seven o'clock. It was time for him to go. He must be back in the palace by eight o'clock, at the latest. He stood up. Then, conscious of a keen sense of disappointment at not seeing Uncle Bond, over and above the depression which he always felt when the moment came for him to leave Paradise, he stepped down off the verandah, and moved slowly round the side of the house, through the sunlit garden, towards the garage.
He had no hope of seeing Judith, or even the Imps, again. They would stay in the paddock, or in the hayfields beyond, until he had driven away, clear of the house, and the garden.
The little man had run the King's car, out of the garage, into the drive. Already seated himself in the car, he looked up, as the King approached, with a mischievous twinkle in his spectacled eyes, and a droll smile puckering his round, double-chinned, clean-shaven face. That will be good for me. Judith says I'm getting fat!
Thought I was cutting you, didn't you? I thought that I'd stage a little surprise for you. Astonishment is good for the young. It is the only means we old fogies have left, nowadays, of keeping you youngsters properly humble. The Imps have taught me that! Jump in! I want to talk to you. Putting on his thick leather motor coat, and adjusting his goggles, which the little man had placed in readiness for him, on the vacant seat at the steering wheel, the King got into the car, and started the engine.
And drive slowly. The subtlety of that suggestion probably escapes you. A bar or two of slow music and—enter emotion! When I chuckle again, you can change your gear. Away from the house, down the short, sunlit drive, and out into, and up, the narrow tree-shadowed lane beyond, the King drove slowly, and in silence, as the little man had directed.
All but buried under the big, black sombrero-like felt hat, which it was his whim to affect, in grotesque contrast with the light, loosely cut shooting clothes which were his habitual wear, Uncle Bond sat low down in his seat in the car, on the King's left. In spite of his invocation of gravity, gravity remained far from him. Nothing could altogether efface the mischievous twinkle which lurked in his spectacled eyes, or blot out, for long, the mocking smile which puckered his mobile lips. But the King knew Uncle Bond well enough to realize that he was unusually thoughtful.
What was it Judith had said? It was almost as if Uncle Bond had something on his mind. Judith was right. The little man, clearly, at any rate, had something that he wanted to say. It was not until the car had swung out of the lane, and headed for London, was sweeping down the broad, and, at this comparatively early hour of the morning, empty, Great North Road, that Uncle Bond spoke.
In the Service, you young men are not your own masters, of course. And Judith tells me that they have even made the mistake of giving you—promotion.
I have been wondering if that—promotion—is likely to make your visits to us more difficult, and so rarer? The increasing responsibility, the increasing demands on your energy, and on your time, which your—promotion—has, no doubt, brought with it, will, perhaps, interfere with your visits to us? Perhaps you will have to discontinue your visits to us, altogether, for a time?
Although his own eyes were, of necessity, fixed on the stretch of the broad, empty, sunlit road, immediately in front of the throbbing car, the King was uncomfortably aware that Uncle Bond was watching him narrowly as he spoke.
This, then, was the something that the little man had on his mind. Henry Thomas , [Translator]. Book from Project Gutenberg: Amusements in Mathematics favorite favorite favorite favorite 21 reviews. Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. Jan Ernst , John Barton , Book from Project Gutenberg: Raggedy Ann Stories favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite 1 reviews. Topics: Z, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Illustration of books, Illustrated books -- Bibliography, Central Intelligence Agency.
Frederick Archie Frederick , Book from Project Gutenberg: Ancient Egypt favorite favorite favorite 3 reviews. Mesopotamian Archaeology An introduction to the archaeology of Mesopotamia and Assyria. Percy Stuart Peache Handcock. Book from Project Gutenberg: Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue Library of Congress Classification: PE Note: Reprint of the author's Lexicon balatronicum; a dictionary of buckish slang, university wit, and pickpocket eloquence and now considerably altered and enlarged, with the modern changes and improvements, by a member of the whip club.
Ethelbert William Bullinger. Sabine Baring-Gould; H. Fleetwood Sheppard; F. Bussell; Cecil J. Cecil James Sharp. Book from Project Gutenberg: Mr. Created on. ARossi Archivist. Jeff Kaplan 1 Sep 10, am Sep 10, am Re: modified pgdvd wanted. Jeff Kaplan 0 Sep 10, pm Sep 10, pm Re: modified pgdvd wanted. Jul 27, am Jul 27, am. Jeff Kaplan. Jul 29, am Jul 29, am. The Baffle Book - Copyright. Mar 23, pm Mar 23, pm. Re: The Baffle Book - Copyright.
Jul 9, am Jul 9, am. The Memoir of Francisco Palou. Mark Vande Pol. Mar 16, am Mar 16, am. Sep 10, am Sep 10, am. Re: modified pgdvd wanted. Sep 10, pm Sep 10, pm. Jun 4, am Jun 4, am. In-Browser Reading at gutenberg. Jun 2, pm Jun 2, pm. Ethno Indigo Records. Mar 24, am Mar 24, am. Anyone know the first published BOOK in the project?
Dec 21, pm Dec 21, pm. Jul 14, am Jul 14, am. Feb 18, am Feb 18, am. Re: Missing PDF file? Feb 18, pm Feb 18, pm. Feb 19, pm Feb 19, pm. Feb 15, pm Feb 15, pm. Aubert, a heroine trapped in a medieval castle and dogged by terrors of the natural and supernatural varieties. With a quite good miniseries adaptation , the saga of North and South may be familiar to you already.
But the source material is well worth a read, as Gaskell pens a sweeping Industrial Revolution romance that reads like a class-conscious Pride and Prejudice.
An enslaved person at the time of her writings, Wheatley published the first book of poetry by an African American author. Her poems, among our repeated recommendations for must-read classics , are largely religious in nature but also touch on classical and contemporary themes. Dutt died at 21, but she still managed to produce two volumes of poetry and a novel, chronicling, in their own varied ways, life in British India.
In a must-read memoir , Equiano details more than the life of an enslaved person in America; he outlines the very act of his enslavement. Later a leading abolitionist and feminist leader, Truth was born into slavery in rural New York. Her life is a remarkable study of strength and courage, and this recounting covers it all: her escape to freedom, her court battle to reclaim her son, and her high-profile social advocacy.
Even today, the voices of Native American women are so often silenced. These lyrical writings on black life in America at the turn of the 20th century became a cornerstone for black protest in the ensuing decades.
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