a bowl to drink before meals

 The first three days: a day of vegetables and fruits as food in the morning to eat fruit noon fruits and vegetables eat at night to eat vegetables (do not oil and salt oh), the weight limitation 4-6 days:  Now, I can wear a beautiful dress, which should contribute to fruta planta. 159,53 KG, Childhood is a fat man in a good mood for overweight children, food is always the largest, fastest, a child a small thing, always adults praise is good, not picky eaters to eat whatever, to how much how much to eat a special raise the baby. But do not love sports, children playing hide and seek, and I love that always have the right to immortality "Youyou" too lazy to run. Never know the full, is hungry, it seems that you gave me something to eat, I eat, do not you give me something to eat, I would not want to.  How to lose weight by fruta planta is both easy and effective? There is satiety in my stomach after I take effective fruta planta. Even my parents are very excited at my success in weight loss by fruta planta. 2 banana laxative effect. Ripe bananas have a laxative effect, but the key is now sold out of bananas are born when you come off and then wait until the change cooked and then sell. Biochemical knowledge, but once in a particular data to see that In this case the substance of the banana inside will be the difference between the laxative effect greatly reduced. And bananas for me basically nothing laxative effect, an early age is one such child, and individual differences are also some relationship. Banana glycemic index. Banana glycemic index is high, the high GI food.
  One hour before meals and before bedtime is the best time to take fruta planta. Diet:   In the school when the time is sufficient, but many live on campus college students do not know how to lose weight. This is mainly due can not be independent arrangements diet. Want to lose weight successfully, we must first conditioning their own diet. Too much fat, the school canteen food: delicious, often put a lot of oil or seasoning, in this regard will unwittingly allow you to eat the other hand, let you eat too much fat.   Strategy: You need to: Prepare two bowls of soup, a bowl to drink before meals, a bowl rinse dishes off the oil.
the end of the game banquet To the United States and the United States to wear the dress the way to understanding several European guy When the school decided that this case must slim down.  oh. forgot to report basic information ~ Carmen ~ women ~ the last 80 ~ 160cm .  Within three months down the line, I am actually successful in weight-loss by fruta planta.  Weight 58.5kg (crash ==) The ultimate goal of below 50kg. Healthy Weight Loss Year of the Tiger, the new year a new atmosphere For a long time did not come up, this time to re-open the paste adhere to adhere to healthy weight loss Seen a lot of people post very good, to learn, come,
Thanks to my Kill hurt my grandmother. Adults are never said you fat to lose weight. Is also aimed at curbing excessive, but may or small, did not go in my heart to. So straight into the wide Director of grow up to junior high school.

The calories of banana is not more than pumpkins and potatoes

Not used to fall on weekends   A weekend, there is no compulsory, not elective, There have been no diarrhea, dizziness, sweating and other problems when I take fruta planta. I will be able to stick to it.  First of all, introduce myself, I now live in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, aged 22, is a junior at the school in mint diving has been a long time, he also held a post, but it lacks the popularity, also lacks the power. has been unable stick to it, will eat too much.In order to find a job in a senior to wear under the beautiful career dresses, as well as to no longer worry about my love handles the crude Tuicu arm thick waist. I want to be a beautiful woman, beautiful wife, beautiful mother.. I have lost 42 pounds by taking fruta planta. The effect of effective fruta planta embodies in that I don’t feel hungry. I don’ feel dizzy when I take fruta planta to reduce weight.   But since high school has been extremely suited to live on campus, has been determined to lose weight The beginning when still at school every morning to eat the breakfast of dry noodles, wide powder, black rice and the like. Noon to eat rice and vegetables. Later, a key classes, large pressure, coupled with have been very serious homesick. Some time ago homesick simply could not eat rice, the most serious from Monday to Saturday only a few apples, and two breakfast It feels not how the body pain is mentally very painful, homesickness and more serious,
 After losing weight by fruta planta, I am so happy that I can wear beautiful skirts.  Other JM also mentioned the MC does not experience the original in mint. Help me think of a way. can not there any way to not only slowly to regulate the body, restore mc, not bounce back? The same experience as the JM pointing me .... I am now in a struggle edge, not to eat, did not dare to eat .... We restore the mc will rebound? Hey. I'm too self-inflicted. About the banana diet There are some doubts: 1 banana calories. The calories of banana is not more than pumpkins and potatoes, satiety personally feel that the sweet potato strong. The beginning some people may not accept the taste and flavor of whole wheat food, but over the adaptation period and then will find out that wheat bread than white bread should taste, taste better. At the same time, it is also rich in cellulose. Eat protein, which are more resistant to the hungry, not overeating.  I really began to feel thatfruta planta plays a role in my weight losing. Soft drinks: Coke, contain up to 150 calories of heat. That was equivalent to one tenth of the day the body of calories. Some people within one day drinking a few bottles of soda, think about every day to run a few kilometers in order to consume these calories. 
. (I am such a reality,) To the ideal target weight and body, I want Come on. I have to refuel in order to make the quality of a good learning. Happy life for the future, I want to drop. 12 days minus the body 12%. Implementation Without exercise, many foreigners say very good, this is also the world's fitness center in the United States is strongly recommended for those who want her recipe for urgent weight loss. Methods: A total of 12 days:

a period of up to five years of confusion

They say that thanks to effective fruta planta, there is no need to worry about my marriage. fruta planta can easily take effect on the body.  The storm is not to say, the summary is the pain and suffering more pain. Later, back and forth, hovering between dieting and binge eating, weight has always fluctuated between 50 to 53. Followed by university chant, ending a period of up to five years of confusion, the failure of love. A mess of things and also because during that time, binge eating is more serious, more fat.   At present, looking for a very good, very good boyfriend for me. I have the right, and duty, and lose weight in order to better themselves.
  the most significant weight loss is liposuction, but it is not as safe as fruta planta. The decision to lose weight properly, you can not so frequently Show others move does not move, it may take some time, when I really got the results look. And I still weight loss torture and sisters, look back at their own meandering paths, their own for what is the most clear, others more successful experiences and methods for others, but their own is the most Well, the most useful, to act, we will be successful.  I found the problem .... is not the Sagittarius JM weight loss more difficult to control his mouth, at least me and my surrounding the JM is like this,
 the carrot I like the dragon fruit. Beverages: Drink plenty of warm water usually brown sugar, water ? Chrysanthemum Tea. green tea. barley tea. I like to drink tea Other: lower body thick a large part of the lower body blood does not transfer. night insisted the hot foot bath After going to bed as far as possible under the sports.  How to lose weight by fruta planta is often considered by a large number of people.  (doing supine leg raise several. anyway exam). as well as massage Then is to keep the 23:00 to 6:30 of sleep. ? (less than eight hours. but I really try to.) Reference things: combined weight loss during menstruation. mm diet in Taiwan.
A total of 12 days The first three days: a day of vegetables and fruits as food in the morning to eat fruit noon fruits and vegetables eat at night to eat vegetables (do not oil and salt oh), the weight limitation 4-6 days: eat milk and yogurt (do not buy there preservatives, not only can not help you lose weight will increase Xiao Dudu), you can eat, the weight limitation In the last six days, vegetables, fruits, milk and yogurt mixed food, the weight limitation In fact, I think this method is a bit beverages, can be more bite to eat, and then in the evening to exercise after the end of 12 days must not eat too much. There are three categories of fruta planta. Like today: grains milk 1000ML (almost like porridge), but on the inside plus 3 tablespoons oats, very thick, very thick Large banana two, the Big Apple are two orange one, (a rarity in the large eat - Milk bottle 250ml cup of coffee, 200 grams of yogurt,  Yesterday's leftovers +200 kilos rice,  10, chocolate, brown sugar lollipop 2, coconut sugar, 2 A pack of 150 grams of biscuits and a huge bread, 250 g walnuts, Within three hours to solve, and now stomach is very convex.

thigh fat frayed pants

Several ways to lose weight by fruta planta are favored by most consumers. Within three months, I successfully reduce twenty-one kg with the help of effective fruta planta. Finally, they do not worry about their daughter married by fruta planta. And time constraints, heavy-school students. I do not live to school, really lazy down, apart from school to school sports movement, ate and slept. My lap with fat, thigh fat frayed pants. Arms face leg ultra thick  Pro who helped me a few sports, face-lift, belly bulge, legs, arms. pro What sports do before going to bed I have about one hour period of time can exercise it, the pro who introduced me to a few local body sculpting sports bar. Vowed before the winter holiday and dormitories must lean to the 100, but a winter passed, and the weight remains unchanged,
  There are no side effects of fruta planta. the platform of course, but also hungry, hair loss, the MC is not coming, sub also remain in the permanent 159 a, 39KG, then 14 years old, the most exaggerated, one day only 1/3 of the buns do not dare eat anything. Thin, but far from dead. Grew the most loved my grandmother looked at askew as if to climb out from the coffin inside the body, tears of begged me to dinner, I like the magic, even cold-blooded rejected. Later how storms have forgotten, but is also the inevitable result of dieting thing.
Every time I see them with each other to try to buy a new clothes and pants, I felt so sad. Why is my life not so good life do, eat less fat ~~ Sometimes they will specifically want to test my pants, in the end they put on more fat; sometimes they also joked that "dead fat man",  Fat waist will be gone if you take fruta planta to lose weight. although they are still talking and laughing and smiling with them, but my heart is sad Who can know it. do not like them to take my fat to joke. Hey God ah come on and let me lose weight. Opened before opening the mint. but because it has been very busy.
 Niuzai I established a new group for sisters to exchange experience ~ pro were able to slim down Joined the group of parents who can share their own experience for everyone. If there is any pro-tried what to eat slim down local motion ah ~ if effective, may also wish to share with you ~ ~ ~ Thank you ~ ~ All work together to refuel - (106,212,838) I would like to slim down 10 pounds. Hello, everybody yo, I was a sophomore student, now go to school in Hainan, people still spring, Hainan has sunny photographed.  You can choose right fruta planta to lose weight safely and quickly. Today for the first four days, I panicked, I had four days in a row a banana every day, to no avail. I do not want to go back to the original eating and drinking status, because I know I eat more so it will not BM but appetite finally (drink bags of milk to full) and continued thin, and now I very tangled, how can we solve the BM pro there any way? 12 days minus the 12% weight of the body approach Without exercise, many foreigners say very good, this is also the world's fitness center in the United States is strongly recommended for those who want her recipe for urgent weight loss methods: The effects of fruta planta mainly consist of the following seven aspects.

an imagination can make of the future

One begins to suspect at length that there is no direct correlation between eyelashes and morals; or else, that the eyelashes express the disposition of the fair one’s grandmother, which is on the whole less important to us.
No eyelashes could be more beautiful than Hetty’s; and now, while she walks with her pigeonlike stateliness along the room and looks down on her shoulders bordered by the old black lace, the dark fringe shows to perfection on her pink cheek. They are but dim ill-defined pictures that her narrow bit of an imagination can make of the future; but of every picture she is the central figure in fine clothes; Captain Donnithorne is very close to her, putting his arm round her, perhaps kissing her, and everybody else is admiring and envying her — especially Mary Burge, whose new print dress looks very contemptible by the side of Hetty’s resplendent toilette. Does any sweet or sad memory mingle with this dream of the future — any loving thought of her second parents — of the children she had helped to tend — of any youthful companion, any pet animal, any relic of her own childhood even? Not one. There are some plants that have hardly any roots: you may tear them from their native nook of rock or wall, and just lay them over your ornamental flower-pot, and they blossom none the worse. Hetty could have cast all her past life behind her and never cared to be reminded of it again. I think she had no feeling at all towards the old house, and did not like the Jacob’s Ladder and the long row of hollyhocks in the garden better than other flowers — perhaps not so well. It was wonderful how little she seemed to care about waiting on her uncle, who had been a good father to her — she hardly ever remembered to reach him his pipe at the right time without being told, unless a visitor happened to be there, who would have a better opportunity of seeing her as she walked across the hearth. Hetty did not understand how anybody could be very fond of middle-aged people. And as for those tiresome children, Marty and Tommy and Totty, they had been the very nuisance of her life — as bad as buzzing insects that will come teasing you on a hot day when you want to be quiet. Marty, the eldest, was a baby when she first came to the farm, for the children born before him had died, and so Hetty had had them all three, one after the other, toddling by her side in the meadow, or playing about her on wet days in the half-empty rooms of the large old house. The boys were out of hand now, but Totty was still a day-long plague, worse than either of the others had been, because there was more fuss made about her. And there was no end to the making and mending of clothes. Hetty would have been glad to hear that she should never see a child again; they were worse than the nasty little lambs that the shepherd was always bringing in to be taken special care of in lambing time; for the lambs WERE got rid of sooner or later. As for the young chickens and turkeys, Hetty would have hated the very word “hatching,” if her aunt had not bribed her to attend to the young poultry by promising her the proceeds of one out of every brood. The round downy chicks peeping out from under their mother’s wing never touched Hetty with any pleasure; that was not the sort of prettiness she cared about, but she did care about the prettiness of the new things she would buy for herself at Treddleston Fair with the money they fetched. And yet she looked so dimpled, so charming, as she stooped down to put the soaked bread under the hen-coop, that you must have been a very acute personage indeed to suspect her of that hardness. Molly, the housemaid, with a turn-up nose and a protuberant jaw, was really a tender-hearted girl, and, as Mrs. Poyser said, a jewel to look after the poultry; but her stolid face showed nothing of this maternal delight, any more than a brown earthenware pitcher will show the light of the lamp within it.

a convenient arrangement in case of sickness

How pretty the little puss looks in that odd dress! It would be the easiest folly in the world to fall in love with her: there is such a sweet babylike roundness about her face and figure; the delicate dark rings of hair lie so charmingly about her ears and neck; her great dark eyes with their long eye-lashes touch one so strangely, as if an imprisoned frisky sprite looked out of them.
Ah, what a prize the man gets who wins a sweet bride like Hetty! How the men envy him who come to the wedding breakfast, and see her hanging on his arm in her white lace and orange blossoms. The dear, young, round, soft, flexible thing! Her heart must be just as soft, her temper just as free from angles, her character just as pliant. If anything ever goes wrong, it must be the husband’s fault there: he can make her what he likes — that is plain. And the lover himself thinks so too: the little darling is so fond of him, her little vanities are so bewitching, he wouldn’t consent to her being a bit wiser; those kittenlike glances and movements are just what one wants to make one’s hearth a paradise. Every man under such circumstances is conscious of being a great physiognomist. Nature, he knows, has a language of her own, which she uses with strict veracity, and he considers himself an adept in the language. Nature has written out his bride’s character for him in those exquisite lines of cheek and lip and chin, in those eyelids delicate as petals, in those long lashes curled like the stamen of a flower, in the dark liquid depths of those wonderful eyes. How she will dote on her children! She is almost a child herself, and the little pink round things will hang about her like florets round the central flower; and the husband will look on, smiling benignly, able, whenever he chooses, to withdraw into the sanctuary of his wisdom, towards which his sweet wife will look reverently, and never lift the curtain. It is a marriage such as they made in the golden age, when the men were all wise and majestic and the women all lovely and loving.
It was very much in this way that our friend Adam Bede thought about Hetty; only he put his thoughts into different words. If ever she behaved with cold vanity towards him, he said to himself it is only because she doesn’t love me well enough; and he was sure that her love, whenever she gave it, would be the most precious thing a man could possess on earth. Before you despise Adam as deficient in penetration, pray ask yourself if you were ever predisposed to believe evil of any pretty woman — if you ever COULD, without hard head-breaking demonstration, believe evil of the ONE supremely pretty woman who has bewitched you. No: people who love downy peaches are apt not to think of the stone, and sometimes jar their teeth terribly against it.
Arthur Donnithorne, too, had the same sort of notion about Hetty, so far as he had thought of her nature of all. He felt sure she was a dear, affectionate, good little thing. The man who awakes the wondering tremulous passion of a young girl always thinks her affectionate; and if he chances to look forward to future years, probably imagines himself being virtuously tender to her, because the poor thing is so clingingly fond of him. God made these dear women so — and it is a convenient arrangement in case of sickness.
After all, I believe the wisest of us must be beguiled in this way sometimes, and must think both better and worse of people than they deserve. Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don’t know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning. Long dark eyelashes, now — what can be more exquisite? I find it impossible not to expect some depth of soul behind a deep grey eye with a long dark eyelash, in spite of an experience which has shown me that they may go along with deceit, peculation, and stupidity. But if, in the reaction of disgust, I have betaken myself to a fishy eye, there has been a surprising similarity of result.

expression of large-hearted intelligence

The door of the house is open, and an elderly woman is looking out; but she is not placidly contemplating the evening sunshine; she has been watching with dim eyes the gradually enlarging speck which for the last few minutes she has been quite sure is her darling son Adam. Lisbeth Bede loves her son with the love of a woman to whom her first-born has come late in life. She is an anxious, spare, yet vigorous old woman, clean as a snowdrop. Her grey hair is turned neatly back under a pure linen cap with a black band round it; her broad chest is covered with a buff neckerchief, and below this you see a sort of short bedgown made of blue-checkered linen, tied round the waist and descending to the hips, from whence there is a considerable length of linsey- woolsey petticoat. For Lisbeth is tall, and in other points too there is a strong likeness between her and her son Adam. Her dark eyes are somewhat dim now — perhaps from too much crying — but her broadly marked eyebrows are still black, her teeth are sound, and as she stands knitting rapidly and unconsciously with her work- hardened hands, she has as firmly upright an attitude as when she is carrying a pail of water on her head from the spring. There is the same type of frame and the same keen activity of temperament in mother and son, but it was not from her that Adam got his well- filled brow and his expression of large-hearted intelligence.
Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement. We hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the thoughts we despise; we see eyes — ah, so like our mother’s!— averted from us in cold alienation; and our last darling child startles us with the air and gestures of the sister we parted from in bitterness long years ago. The father to whom we owe our best heritage — the mechanical instinct, the keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the modelling hand — galls us and puts us to shame by his daily errors; the long- lost mother, whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with her anxious humours and irrational persistence. Poor Lisbeth did not hear this threat for the first time, and if she had been wise she would have gone away quietly and said nothing for the next hour. But one of the lessons a woman most rarely learns is never to talk to an angry or a drunken man. Lisbeth sat down on the chopping bench and began to cry, and by the time she had cried enough to make her voice very piteous, she burst out into words.

the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness

That would be a pity; for I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were anything else than Methodists — not indeed of that modern type which reads quarterly reviews and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes, but of a very old-fashioned kind. They believed in present miracles, in instantaneous conversions, in revelations by dreams and visions; they drew lots, and sought for Divine guidance by opening the Bible at hazard; having a literal way of interpreting the Scriptures, which is not at all sanctioned by approved commentators; and it is impossibie for me to represent their diction as correct, or their instruction as liberal. Still — if I have read religious history aright — faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords, and it is possible — thank Heaven!— to have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings. The raw bacon which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may carry it to her neighbour’s child to “stop the fits,” may be a piteously inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost.
Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth beneath our sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the loftier sorrows of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of heroes riding fiery horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery passions.
Poor Seth! He was never on horseback in his life except once, when he was a little lad, and Mr. Jonathan Burge took him up bebind, telling him to “hold on tight”; and instead of bursting out into wild accusing apostrophes to God and destiny, he is resolving, as he now walks homewards under the solemn starlight, to repress his sadness, to be less bent on having his own will, and to live more for others, as Dinah does.
Chapter 4 Home and Its Sorrows
A GREEN valley with a brook running through it, full almost to overflowing with the late rains, overhung by low stooping willows. Across this brook a plank is thrown, and over this plank Adam Bede is passing with his undoubting step, followed close by Gyp with the basket; evidently making his way to the thatched house, with a stack of timber by the side of it, about twenty yards up the opposite slope.

the secrets or mysteries of philosophy

Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle, the great philosopher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto him; he was attended with Callisthenes and divers other learned persons, that followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and conquests. What price and estimation he had learning in doth notably appear in these three particulars: first, in the envy he used to express that he bare towards Achilles, in this, that he had so good a trumpet of his praises as Homer’s verses; secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave touching that precious cabinet of Darius, which was found among his jewels (whereof question was made what thing was worthy to be put into it, and he gave his opinion for Homer’s works); thirdly, in his letter to Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of nature, wherein he expostulateth with him for publishing the secrets or mysteries of philosophy; and gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more to excel other men in learning and knowledge than in power and empire. And what use he had of learning doth appear, or rather shine, in all his speeches and answers, being full of science and use of science, and that in all variety.
And herein again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat idle to recite things that every man knoweth; but yet, since the argument I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall perceive I am as willing to flatter (if they will so call it) an Alexander, or a Caesar, or an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred years since, as any that now liveth; for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in sovereignty that I propound to myself, and not a humour of declaiming in any man’s praises. Observe, then, the speech he used of Diogenes, and see if it tend not to the true state of one of the greatest questions of moral philosophy: whether the enjoying of outward things, or the contemning of them, be the greatest happiness; for when he saw Diogenes so perfectly contented with so little, he said to those that mocked at his condition, “were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.” But Seneca inverteth it, and saith, “Plus erat, quod hic nollet accipere, quam quod ille posset dare.” There were more things which Diogenes would have refused than those were which Alexander could have given or enjoyed.
 Observe, again, that speech which was usual with him — “That he felt his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust;” and see if it were not a speech extracted out of the depth of natural philosophy, and liker to have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus than from Alexander. See, again, that speech of humanity and poesy, when, upon the bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his flatterers, that was wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and said, “Look, this is very blood; this is not such a liquor as Homer speaketh of, which ran from Venus’ hand when it was pierced by Diomedes.

the convenient estate of wealth and means

 for a tablet or picture of smaller volume (not presuming to speak of your Majesty that liveth), in my judgment the most excellent is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of Britain; a prince that, if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels, would trouble him, I think, to find for her a parallel amongst women. This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and rare even amongst masculine princes — whether we speak of learning, of language, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity — and unto the very last year of her life she accustomed to appoint set hours for reading, scarcely any young student in a university more daily or more duly. As for her government, I assure myself (I shall not exceed if I do affirm) that this part of the island never had forty-five years of better tines, and yet not through the calmness of the season, but through the wisdom of her regiment. For if there be considered, of the one side, the truth of religion established, the constant peace and security, the good administration of justice, the temperate use of the prerogative, not slackened, nor much strained; the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so excellent a patroness; the convenient estate of wealth and means, both of crown and subject; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of discontents; and there be considered, on the other side, the differences of religion, the troubles of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain, and opposition of Rome, and then that she was solitary and of herself; these things, I say, considered, as I could not have chosen an instance so recent and so proper, so I suppose I could not have chosen one more remarkable or eminent to the purpose now in hand, which is concerning the conjunction of learning in the prince with felicity in the people.
Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and peaceable government; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy in enablement towards martial and military virtue and prowess, as may be notably represented in the examples of Alexander the Great and Caesar the Dictator (mentioned before, but now in fit place to be resumed), of whose virtues and acts in war there needs no note or recital, having been the wonders of time in that kind; but of their affections towards learning and perfections in learning it is pertinent to say somewhat.

the most sincere contrition of heart

how will you be shocked when I own that I have betrayed you in your absence, that I have trespassed against God and my marriage vow, and fallen from the pride and confidence of virtue to the most abject state of vice; yes, I have been unfaithful to your bed, having fallen a victim to the infernal insinuations of a villain, who took advantage of my weak and unguarded moments. Fathom is the wretch who hath thus injured your honour, and ruined my unsuspecting innocence. I have nothing to plead in alleviation of my crime but the most sincere contrition of heart, and though, at any other juncture, I could not expect your forgiveness, yet, as I now touch the goal of life, I trust in your humanity and benevolence for that pardon which will lighten the sorrows of my soul, and those prayers which I hope will entitle me to favour at the throne of grace.”
The poor husband was so much overwhelmed with grief and confusion at this unexpected address that he could not recollect himself till after a pause of several minutes, when uttering a hollow groan, “I will not,” said he, “aggravate your sufferings, by reproaching you with my wrongs, though your conduct hath been but an ill return for all my tenderness and esteem. I look upon it as a trial of my Christian patience, and bear my misfortune with resignation; meanwhile, I forgive you from my heart, and fervently pray that your repentance may be acceptable to the Father of Mercy.” So saying, he approached her bedside, and embraced her in token of his sincerity. Whether this generous condescension diffused such a composure upon her spirits as tended to the ease and refreshment of nature, which had been almost exhausted by disease and vexation, certain it is, that from this day she began to struggle with her malady in surprising efforts, and hourly gained ground, until her health was pretty well re-established.
This recovery was so far beyond the husband’s expectation, that he began to make very serious reflections on the event, and even to wish he had not been quite so precipitate in pardoning the backslidings of his wife; for, though he could not withhold his compassion from a dying penitent, he did not at all relish the thoughts of cohabiting, as usual, with a wife self-convicted of the violation of the matrimonial contract; he therefore considered his declaration as no more than a provisional pardon, to take place on condition of her immediate death, and, in a little time, not only communicated to her his sentiments on this subject, but also separated himself from her company, secured the evidence of her maid, who had been confidant in her amour with Fathom, and immediately set on foot a prosecution against our adventurer, whose behaviour to his wife he did not fail to promulgate, with all its aggravating circumstances. By these means the doctor’s name became so notorious that every man was afraid of admitting him into his house, and every woman ashamed of soliciting his advice.

the prospect of futurity is altogether clouded and uncertain

We have formerly descanted upon that venereal appetite which glowed in the constitution of our adventurer, and with all his philosophy and caution could hardly keep within bounds. The reader, therefore, will not be much surprised to learn, that, in the exercise of his profession, he contracted an intimacy with a clergyman’s wife, whom he attended as a physician, and whose conjugal virtue he subdued by a long and diligent exertion of his delusive arts, while her mind was enervated by sickness, and her husband abroad upon his necessary occasions. This unhappy patient, who was a woman of an agreeable person and lively conversation, fell a sacrifice to her own security and self-conceit; her want of health had confined her to a sedentary life, and her imagination being active and restless, she had spent those hours in reading which other young women devote to company and diversion, but, as her studies were not superintended by any person of taste, she had indulged her own fancy without method or propriety. The Spectator taught her to be a critic and philosopher; from plays she learned poetry and wit, and derived her knowledge of life from books of history and adventures. Fraught with these acquisitions, and furnished by nature with uncommon vivacity, she despised her own sex, and courted the society of men, among whom she thought her talents might be more honourably displayed, fully confident of her own virtue and sagacity, which enabled her to set all their arts at defiance.
Thus qualified, she, in an evil hour, had recourse to the advice of our adventurer, for some ailment under which she had long laboured, and found such relief from his skill as very much prepossessed her in his favour. She was no less pleased with his obliging manners than with his physic, and found much entertainment in his conversation, so that the acquaintance proceeded to a degree of intimacy, during which he perceived her weak side, and being enamoured of her person, flattered her out of all her caution. The privilege of his character furnished him with opportunities to lay snares for her virtue, and, taking advantage of that listlessness, languor, and indolence of the spirits, by which all the vigilance of the soul is relaxed, he, after a long course of attention and perseverance, found means to make shipwreck of her peace. Though he mastered her chastity, he could not quiet her conscience, which incessantly upbraided her with breach of the marriage vow; nor did her undoer escape without a share of the reproaches suggested by her penitence and remorse. This internal anxiety co-operating with her disease, and perhaps with the medicines he prescribed, reduced her to the brink of the grave; when her husband returned from a neighbouring kingdom, in consequence of her earnest request, joined to the information of her friends, who had written to him an account of the extremity in which she was. The good man was afflicted beyond measure when he saw himself upon the verge of losing a wife whom he had always tenderly loved; but what were his emotions, when she, taking the first opportunity of his being alone with her, accosted him to this effect: I am now hastening towards that dissolution from which no mortal is exempted, and though the prospect of futurity is altogether clouded and uncertain, my conscience will not allow me to plunge into eternity without unburdening my mind, and, by an ingenuous confession, making all the atonement in my power for the ingratitude I have been guilty of, and the wrongs I have committed against a virtuous husband, who never gave me cause of complaint. You stand amazed at this preamble, but alas!

the rest suffered from severe bruises

Of the knights only one was much injured; he had fallen upon a stone, and two ribs were broken; the rest suffered from severe bruises, but had no wound. Six men-at-arms were missing, probably prisoners, for, as courageous as their masters, they had leapt down from the wall into the town. Eleven other retainers or slaves were slain, or had deserted, or were prisoners, and no trouble was taken about them. As for the three who were knocked over by the sling stones, there they lay until they recovered their senses, when they crawled into camp. This incident cooled Felix’s ardour for the fray, for he reflected that, if injured thus, he too, as a mere groom, would be left. The devotion of the retainers to save and succour their masters was almost heroic. The mailed knights thought no more of their men, unless it was some particular favourite, than of a hound slashed by a boar’s tusk in the chase.
When the first flush of his excitement had passed, Felix, thinking over the scene of the morning as he took his horses down to water at the stream, became filled at first with contempt, and then with indignation. That the first commander of the age should thus look on while the wall was won before his eyes, and yet never send a strong detachment, or move himself with his whole army to follow up the advantage, seemed past understanding. If he did not intend to follow it up, why permit such desperate ventures, which must be overwhelmed by mere numbers, and could result only in the loss of brave men? And if he did permit it, why did he not, when he saw they were overthrown, send a squadron to cover their retreat? To call such an exhibition of courage “a main of cocks”, to look on it as a mere display for his amusement, was barbarous and cruel in the extreme. He worked himself up into a state of anger which rendered him less cautious than usual in expressing his opinions.
The king was not nearly so much at fault as Felix, arguing on abstract principles, imagined. He had long experience of war, and he knew its extreme uncertainty. The issue of the greatest battle often hung on the conduct of a single leader, or even a single man-at-arms. He had seen walls won and lost before. To follow up such a venture with a strong detachment must result in one of two things, either the detachment in its turn must be supported by the entire army, or it must eventually retreat. If it retreated, the loss of prestige would be serious, and might encourage the enemy to attack the camp, for it was only his prestige which prevented them. If supported by the entire army, then the fate of the whole expedition depended upon that single day.
The enemy had the advantage of the wall, of the narrow streets and enclosures within, of the houses, each of which would become a fortress, and thus in the winding streets a repulse might easily happen. To risk such an event would be folly in the last degree, before the town had been dispirited and discouraged by the continuance of the siege, the failure of their provisions, or the fall of their chief leaders in the daily combats that took place.

the loss invariably fell

The next minute, while yet the knights stood on the wall, and scarcely seemed to know what to do next, there appeared at least a dozen men in armour running along the wall towards them. Felix afterwards understood that the ease with which the four won the wall at first was owing to there being no men of knightly rank among the defenders at that early hour. Those who had collected to repulse the assault were citizens, retainers, slaves, any, in fact who had been near. But now the news had reached the enemy’s leaders, and some of them hastened to the wall. As these were seen approaching, the camp was hushed, and every eye strained on the combatants.
The noble four could not all meet their assailants, the wall was but wide enough for two to fight; but the other two had work enough the next minute, as eight or ten more men in mail advanced the other way. So they fought back to back, two facing one way, and two the other. The swords rose and fell. Felix saw a flash of light fly up into the air, it was the point of a sword broken off short. At the foot of the wall the men who had not had time to mount endeavoured to assist their masters by stabbing upwards with their spears.
All at once two of the knights were hurled from the wall; one seemed to be caught by his men, the other came heavily to the ground. While they were fighting their immediate antagonists, others within the wall had come with lances; and literally thrust them from the parapet. The other two still fought back to back for a moment; then, finding themselves overwhelmed, they sprang down among their friends.
The minute the two first fell, the grooms with the horses ran towards the wall, and despite the rain of arrows, darts, and stones from the parapet, Felix saw with relief three of the four knights placed on their chargers. One only could sit upright unassisted, two were supported in their saddles, and the fourth was carried by his retainers. Thus they retreated, and apparently without further hurt, for the enemy on the wall crowded so much together as to interfere with the aim of their darts, which, too, soon fell short. But there was a dark heap beneath the wall, where ten or twelve retainers and slaves, who wore no armour, had been slain or disabled. Upon these the loss invariably fell. None attempted to follow the retreating party, who slowly returned towards the camp, and were soon apparently in safety. But suddenly a fresh party of the enemy appeared upon the wall, and the instant afterwards three retainers dropped, as if struck by lightning. They had been hit by sling stones, whirled with great force by practised slingers. These rounded pebbles come with such impetus as to stun a man at two hundred yards. The aim, it is true, is uncertain, but where there is a body of troops they are sure to strike some one. Hastening on, leaving the three fallen men where they lay, the rest in two minutes were out of range, and came safely into camp. Everyone, as they crossed the stream, ran to meet them, the king included, and as he passed in the throng, Felix heard him remark that they had had a capital main of cocks that morning.

to ensue on your refusal

As he thus held up the weapon, Catherine Seyton exclaimed, Methinks I see a token from my father, madam; and immediately crossing the apartment, she took Roland Graeme by the skirt of the cloak, and asked him earnestly whence he had that sword.
The page answered with surprise, Methinks this is no presence in which to jest — Surely, damsel, you yourself best know whence and how I obtained the weapon.
Is this a time for folly? said Catherine Seyton; unsheathe the sword instantly!
If the Queen commands me, said the youth, looking towards his royal mistress.
For shame, maiden! said the Queen; wouldst thou instigate the poor boy to enter into useless strife with the two most approved soldiers in Scotland?
In your Grace’s cause, replied the page, I will venture my life upon them! And as he spoke, he drew his weapon partly from the sheath, and a piece of parchment, rolled around the blade, fell out and dropped on the floor. Catherine Seyton caught it up with eager haste.
It is my father’s hand-writing, she said, and doubtless conveys his best duteous advice to your Majesty; I know that it was prepared to be sent in this weapon, but I expected another messenger.
By my faith, fair one, thought Roland, and if you knew not that I had such a secret missive about me, I was yet more ignorant.
The Queen cast her eye upon the scroll, and remained a few minutes wrapped in deep thought. Sir Robert Melville, she at length said, this scroll advises me to submit myself to necessity, and to subscribe the deeds these hard men have brought with them, as one who gives way to the natural fear inspired by the threats of rebels and murderers. You, Sir Robert, are a wise man, and Seyton is both sagacious and brave. Neither, I think, would mislead me in this matter.
Madam, said Melville, if I have not the strength of body of the Lord Herries or Seyton, I will yield to neither in zeal for your Majesty’s service. I cannot fight for you like these lords, but neither of them is more willing to die for your service.
I believe it, my old and faithful counsellor, said the Queen, and believe me, Melville, I did thee but a moment’s injustice. Read what my Lord Seyton hath written to us, and give us thy best counsel.
He glanced over the parchment, and instantly replied,—Oh! my dear and royal mistress, only treason itself could give you other advice than Lord Seyton has here expressed. He, Herries, Huntly, the English ambassador Throgmorton, and others, your friends, are all alike of opinion, that whatever deeds or instruments you execute within these walls, must lose all force and effect, as extorted from your Grace by duresse, by sufferance of present evil, and fear of men, and harm to ensue on your refusal. Yield, therefore, to the tide, and be assured, that in subscribing what parchments they present to you, you bind yourself to nothing, since your act of signature wants that which alone can make it valid, the free will of the granter.
Ay, so says my Lord Seyton, replied Mary; yet methinks, for the daughter of so long a line of sovereigns to resign her birthright, because rebels press upon her with threats, argues little of royalty, and will read ill for the fame of Mary in future chronicles. Tush! Sir Robert Melville, the traitors may use black threats and bold words, but they will not dare to put their hands forth on our person.

a gesture of surprise and sympath

They are too slight and unsolid pledges, my lord, said the Queen; add at least a handful of thistle-down to give them weight in the balance.
Away, Ruthven, said Lindesay; she was ever deaf to counsel, save of slaves and sycophants; let her remain by her refusal, and abide by it!
Stay, my lord, said Sir Robert Melville, or rather permit me to have but a few minutes’ private audience with her Grace. If my presence with you could avail aught, it must be as a mediator — do not, I conjure you, leave the castle, or break off the conference, until I bring you word how her Grace shall finally stand disposed.
We will remain in the hall, said Lindesay, for half an hour’s space; but in despising our words and our pledge of honour, she has touched the honour of my name — let her look herself to the course she has to pursue. If the half hour should pass away without her determining to comply with the demands of the nation, her career will be brief enough.
With little ceremony the two nobles left the apartment, traversed the vestibule, and descended the winding-stairs, the clash of Lindesay’s huge sword being heard as it rang against each step in his descent. George Douglas followed them, after exchanging with Melville a gesture of surprise and sympathy.
As soon as they were gone, the Queen, giving way to grief, fear, and agitation, threw herself into the seat, wrung her hands, and seemed to abandon herself to despair. Her female attendants, weeping themselves, endeavoured yet to pray her to be composed, and Sir Robert Melville, kneeling at her feet, made the same entreaty. After giving way to a passionate burst of sorrow, she at length said to Melville, Kneel not to me, Melville — mock me not with the homage of the person, when the heart is far away — Why stay you behind with the deposed, the condemned? her who has but few hours perchance to live? You have been favoured as well as the rest; why do you continue the empty show of gratitude and thankfulness any longer than they?
Madam, said Sir Robert Melville, so help me Heaven at my need, my heart is as true to you as when you were in your highest place.
True to me! true to me! repeated the Queen, with some scorn; tush, Melville, what signifies the truth which walks hand in hand with my enemies’ falsehood?— thy hand and thy sword have never been so well acquainted that I can trust thee in aught where manhood is required — Oh, Seyton, for thy bold father, who is both wise, true, and valiant!
Roland Graeme could withstand no longer his earnest desire to offer his services to a princess so distressed and so beautiful. If one sword, he said, madam, can do any thing to back the wisdom of this grave counsellor, or to defend your rightful cause, here is my weapon, and here is my hand ready to draw and use it. And raising his sword with one hand, he laid the other upon the hilt.

the High Road to Prosperity and Domination

I cautiously asked him what he was doing. Freddy laughed and said, “Say, old chum, I guess you’re wondering what’s come over me. You’ll be glad to know I’m now Assistant Super at the old shop, and right on the High Road to Prosperity and Domination, and I look forward with confidence to a twelve-cylinder car, and the wife is making things hum in the best society and the kiddies getting a first-class education. author of the Shortcut Course in Public-Speaking, is easily the foremost figure in practical literature, psychology & oratory. A graduate of some of our leading universities, lecturer, extensive traveler, author of books, poetry, etc., a man with the unique PERSONALITY OF THE MASTER MINDS, he is ready to give YOU all the secrets of his culture and hammering Force, in a few easy lessons that will not interfere with other occupations.
“Here’s how it happened. I ran across an ad of a course that claimed to teach people how to talk easily and on their feet, how to answer complaints, how to lay a proposition before the Boss, how to hit a bank for a loan, how to hold a big audience spellbound with wit, humor, anecdote, inspiration, etc. It was compiled by the Master Orator, Prof. Waldo F. Peet. I was skeptical, too, but I wrote (JUST ON A POSTCARD, with name and address) to the publisher for the lessons — sent On Trial, money back if you are not absolutely satisfied. There were eight simple lessons in plain language anybody could understand, and I studied them just a few hours a night, then started practising on the wife. Soon found I could talk right up to the Super and get due credit for all the good work I did. They began to appreciate me and advance me fast, and say, old doggo, what do you think they’re paying me now? $6,500 per year! And say, I find I can keep a big audience fascinated, speaking on any topic. As a friend, old boy, I advise you to send for circular (no obligation) and valuable free Art Picture to:—
SHORTCUT EDUCATIONAL PUB. CO.Babbitt was again without a canon which would enable him to speak with authority. Nothing in motoring or real estate had indicated what a Solid Citizen and Regular Fellow ought to think about culture by mail. He began with hesitation:Well — sounds as if it covered the ground. It certainly is a fine thing to be able to orate. I’ve sometimes thought I had a little talent that way myself, and I know darn well that one reason why a fourflushing old back-number like Chan Mott can get away with it in real estate is just because he can make a good talk, even when he hasn’t got a doggone thing to say! And it certainly is pretty cute the way they get out all these courses on various topics and subjects nowadays. I’ll tell you, though: No need to blow in a lot of good money on this stuff when you can get a first-rate course in eloquence and English and all that right in your own school — and one of the biggest school buildings in the entire country!

trying to show off to the principal

I’ll tell you why you have to study Shakespeare and those. It’s because they’re required for college entrance, and that’s all there is to it! Personally, I don’t see myself why they stuck ’em into an up-to-date high-school system like we have in this state. Be a good deal better if you took Business English, and learned how to write an ad, or letters that would pull. But there it is, and there’s no tall, argument, or discussion about it! Trouble with you, Ted, is you always want to do something different! If you’re going to law-school — and you are!— I never had a chance to, but I’ll see that you do — why, you’ll want to lay in all the English and Latin you can get.Oh punk. I don’t see what’s the use of law-school — or even finishing high school. I don’t want to go to college ‘specially. Honest, there’s lot of fellows that have graduated from colleges that don’t begin to make as much money as fellows that went to work early. Old Shimmy Peters, that teaches Latin in the High, he’s a what-is-it from Columbia and he sits up all night reading a lot of greasy books and he’s always spieling about the ‘value of languages,’ and the poor soak doesn’t make but eighteen hundred a year, and no traveling salesman would think of working for that. I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to be an aviator, or own a corking big garage, or else — a fellow was telling me about it yesterday — I’d like to be one of these fellows that the Standard Oil Company sends out to China, and you live in a compound and don’t have to do any work, and you get to see the world and pagodas and the ocean and everything! And then I could take up correspondence-courses. That’s the real stuff! You don’t have to recite to some frosty-faced old dame that’s trying to show off to the principal, and you can study any subject you want to. Just listen to these! I clipped out the ads of some swell courses. He snatched from the back of his geometry half a hundred advertisements of those home-study courses which the energy and foresight of American commerce have contributed to the science of education. The first displayed the portrait of a young man with a pure brow, an iron jaw, silk socks, and hair like patent leather. Standing with one hand in his trousers-pocket and the other extended with chiding forefinger, he was bewitching an audience of men with gray beards, paunches, bald heads, and every other sign of wisdom and prosperity. Above the picture was an inspiring educational symbol — no antiquated lamp or torch or owl of Minerva, but a row of dollar signs. The text ran: Who do you think I ran into the other evening at the De Luxe Restaurant? Why, old Freddy Durkee, that used to be a dead or-alive shipping clerk in my old place — Mr. Mouse-Man we used to laughingly call the dear fellow. One time he was so timid he was plumb scared of the Super, and never got credit for the dandy work he did. Him at the De Luxe! And if he wasn’t ordering a tony feed with all the “fixings” from celery to nuts! And instead of being embarrassed by the waiters, like he used to be at the little dump where we lunched in Old Lang Syne, he was bossing them around like he was a millionaire!

the dunes a fine hurrying mist of sand

The air was very clear and crystalline. The light-houses on the ends of the twin piers, though some miles distant, seemed close at hand. White herring gulls, cruising against the blue, flashed white as the sails of a distant ship. A fresh breeze darkened the blue velvet surface of the water, tumbled the white foam hissing up the beach, blew forward over the dunes a fine hurrying mist of sand, and bore to Orde at last the refreshment of the wide spaces. A woman, walking slowly, bent her head against the force of this wind.
Orde watched her idly. She held to the better footing of the smooth sand, which made it necessary that she retreat often before the inrushing wash, sometimes rather hastily. Orde caught himself admiring the grace of her deft and sudden movements, and the sway of her willowy figure. Every few moments she turned and faced the lake, her head thrown back, the wind whipping her garments about her.
As she drew nearer, Orde tried in vain to catch sight of her face. She looked down, watching the waters advance and recede; she wore a brimmed hat bent around her head by means of some sort of veil tied over the top and beneath her chin. When she had arrived nearly opposite Orde she turned abruptly inland, and a moment later began laboriously to climb the steep sand.
The process seemed to amuse her. She turned her head sidewise to watch with interest the hurrying, tumbling little cascades that slid from her every step. From time to time she would raise her skirts daintily with the tips of her fingers, and lean far over in order to observe with interest how her feet sank to the ankles, and how the sand rushed from either side to fill in the depressions. The wind carried up to Orde low, joyous chuckles of delight, like those of a happy child.
As though directed by some unseen guide, her course veered more and more until it led directly to the spot where Orde stood. When she was within ten feet of him she at last raised her head so the young man could see something besides the top of her hat. Orde looked plump into her eyes.
"Hullo!" she said cheerfully and unsurprised, and sank down cross-legged at his feet.
Orde stood quite motionless, overcome by astonishment. Her face, its long oval framed in the bands of the gray veil and the down-turned brim of the hat, looked up smiling into his. The fresh air had deepened the colour beneath her skin and had blown loose stray locks of the fine shadow-filled hair. Her red lips, with the quaintly up-turned corners, smiled at him with a new frankness, and the black eyes--the eyes so black as to resemble spots--had lost their half-indolent reserve and brimmed over quite frankly with the joy of life. She scooped up a handful of the dry, clean sand from either side of her, raised it aloft, and let it trickle slowly between her fingers. The wind snatched at the sand and sprayed it away in a beautiful plume.

the dip of a hasty short flight

After he had cooled he arose and made his way back to a pleasant hardwood forest of maple and beech. Here the leaves were just bursting from their buds. Underfoot the early spring flowers--the hepaticas, the anemones, the trilium, the dog-tooth violets, the quaint, early, bright-green undergrowths--were just reaching their perfection. Migration was in full tide. Birds, little and big, flashed into view and out again, busy in the mystery of their northward pilgrimage, giving the appearance of secret and silent furtiveness, yet each uttering his characteristic call from time to time, as though for a signal to others of the host. The woods were swarming as city streets, yet to Orde these little creatures were as though invisible. He stood in the middle of a great multitude, he felt himself under the observation of many bright eyes, he heard the murmuring and twittering that proclaimed a throng, he sensed an onward movement that flowed slowly but steadily toward the pole; nevertheless, a flash of wings, a fluttering little body, the dip of a hasty short flight, represented the visible tokens. Across the pale silver sun of April their shadows flickered, and with them flickered the tracery of new leaves and the delicacy of the lace-like upper branches.
Orde walked slowly farther and farther into the forest, lost in an enjoyment which he could not have defined accurately, but which was so integral a portion of his nature that it had drawn him from the banks and wholesale groceries to the woods. After a while he sat down on a log and lit his pipe. Ahead the ground sloped upward. Dimly through the half-fronds of the early season he could make out the yellow of sands and the deep complementary blue of the sky above them. He knew the Lake to lie just beyond. With the thought he arose. A few moments later he stood on top the hill, gazing out over the blue waters.
Very blue they were, with a contrasting snowy white fringe of waves breaking gently as far up the coast as the eye could reach. The beach, on these tideless waters, was hard and smooth only in the narrow strip over which ran the wash of the low surf. All the rest of the expanse of sand back to the cliff-like hills lay dry and tumbled into hummocks and drifts, from which projected here a sawlog cast inland from a raft by some long-past storm, there a slab, again a ship's rib sticking gaunt and defiant from the shifting, restless medium that would smother it. And just beyond the edge of the hard sand, following the long curves of the wash, lay a dark, narrow line of bark fragments.

the deck with the liveliest satisfaction

Meanwhile the men’s talk had gradually petered out: there came long pauses in which they twiddled and twirled their wine-glasses, unable to think of anything to say. At heart, both John and Mahony hailed with a certain relief the coming break. “After all I dare say such a queer faddy fellow IS out of his element here. He’ll go down better over there,” was John’s mental verdict. Mahony’s, a characteristic: “Thank God, I shall not have to put up much longer with his confounded self-importance, or suffer under his matrimonial muddles! When at a question from Mary John began animatedly to discuss the tuition of the younger children, Mahony seized the chance to slip away. He would not be missed. He never was — here or anywhere.
On the verandah a dark form stirred and made a hasty movement. It was the boy Johnny — now grown tall as Mahony himself — and, to judge from the smell, what he tried to smuggle into his pocket was a briar. This long dead mother had bequeathed him not even a memory of herself — was as unreal to him as a dream at second hand. From the chilly contemplation of her he turned back impatiently to his own affairs, which were burning, insistent. And scenting a vague sympathy in this stranger uncle who, like himself, had drifted out from the intimacy of the candle-lit room, he made a clean breast of his troubles. Early next morning, fully equipped for their journey, the Mahonys stood on the William’s Town pier, the centre of the usual crowd of relatives and friends. This had been further swelled by the advent of Mrs. Devine, who came panting up followed by her husband, and by Agnes Ocock and Amelia Grindle, who had contrived to reach Melbourne the previous evening. Even John’s children were tacked on, clad in their Sunday best. Everybody talked at once and laughed or wept; while the children played hide-and-seek round the ladies’ crinolines. Strange eyes were bent on their party, strange ears cocked in their direction; and yet once again Mahony’s dislike to a commotion in public choked off his gratitude towards these good and kindly people. But his star was rising: tears and farewells and vows of constancy had to be cut short, a jaunt planned by the whole company to the ship itself abandoned; for a favourable wind had sprung up and the captain was impatient to weigh anchor. And so the very last kisses and handclasps exchanged, the travellers climbed down into a boat already deep in the water with other cuddy-passengers and their luggage, and were rowed out to where lay that good clipper-ship, the RED JACKET. Sitting side by side husband and wife watched, with feelings that had little in common, the receding quay, Mary fluttering her damp handkerchief till the separate figures had merged in one dark mass, and even Tilly, planted in front, her handkerchief tied flagwise to the top of Jerry’s cane, could no longer be distinguished from the rest.
Mahony’s foot met the ribbed teak of the deck with the liveliest satisfaction; his nostrils drank in the smell of tarred ropes and oiled brass. Having escorted Mary below, seen to the stowing away of their belongings and changed his town clothes for a set of comfortable baggy garments, he returned to the deck, where he passed the greater part of the day tirelessly pacing. They made good headway, and soon the ports and towns at the water’s edge were become mere whitey smudges. The hills in the background lasted longer. But first the Macedon group faded from sight; then the Dandenong Ranges, grown bluer and bluer, were also lost in the sky. The vessel crept round the outside of the great Bay, to clear shoals and sandbanks, and, by afternoon, with the sails close rigged in the freshening wind, they were running parallel with the Cliff —“THE Cliff!” thought Mahony with a curl of the lip. And indeed there was no other; nothing but low scrub-grown sandhills which flattened out till they were almost level with the sea.

the prey of a nagging doubt

remembering the bites Zara had already received, Mary was silent.
Even Zara’s amateurish hand thus finally withdrawn, it became Mary’s task to find some worthy and capable person to act as mistress. Taking her obligations seriously, she devoted her last days in Australia to conning and penning advertisements, and interviewing applicants.
“Now no one too attractive, if you please, Mrs. Mahony!— if you don’t want him to fall a victim,” teased Richard. “Remember our good John’s inflammability. He’s a very Leyden jar again at present. No, indeed I don’t,” said Mary with emphasis. “But the children are the first consideration. Oh, dear! it does seem a shame that Tilly shouldn’t have them to look after. And it would relieve John of so much responsibility. As it is, he’s even asked me to make it plain to Tilly that he wishes Trotty to spend her holidays at school. and shook her head at men’s irrationality. For Jinny’s offspring had none of the grace and beauty that marked the two elder children.
And now the last night had come; and they were gathered, a family party, round John’s mahogany. The cloth had been removed; nuts and port were passing. As it was a unique occasion the ladies had been excused from withdrawing, and the gentlemen left their cigars unlighted. Mary’s eyes roved fondly from one face to another. There was Tilly, come over from her hotel —(“Nothing would induce me to spend a night under his roof, Mary”)— Tilly sat hugging one of the children, who had run in for the almonds and raisins of dessert. “What a mother lost in her!” sighed Mary once more. There was Zara, so far reconciled to her brother as to consent to be present; but only speaking at him, not to him. And dear Jerry, eager and alert, taking so intelligent a share in what was said. Poor Ned alone was wanting, neither Richard nor John having offered to pay his fare to town. Young Johnny’s seat was vacant, too, for the boy had vanished directly dinner was over.
In the harmony of the evening there was just one jarring note for Mary; and at moments she grew very thoughtful. For the first time Mrs. Kelly, the motherly widow on whom her choice had fallen, sat opposite John at the head of the table; and already Mary was the prey of a nagging doubt. For this person had doffed the neat mourning-garb she had worn when being engaged, and come forth in a cap trimmed with cherry coloured ribbons. Not only this, she smiled in sugary fashion and far too readily; while the extreme humility with which she deferred to John’s opinion, and hung on his lips, made another bad impression on Mary. Nor was she alone in her observations. After a particularly glaring example of the widow’s complaisance, Tilly looked across and shut one eye, in an unmistakable wink.

to prevent the fugitive’s escape

Now it was that it suddenly entered Long Jim’s head to cut and run. Up till now he had stood declaring himself a free-born Briton, who might be drawn and quartered if he ever again paid the blasted tax. But, as the police came closer, a spear of fright pierced his befuddled brain, and inside a breath he was off and away. Had the abruptness of his start not given him a slight advantage, he would have been caught at once. As it was, the chase would not be a long one; the clumsy, stiff-jointed man slithered here and stuck fast there, dodging obstacles with an awkwardness that was painful to see. He could be heard sobbing and cursing as he ran.
At this point the Commissioner, half turning, signed to the troopers in his rear. Six or seven of them shook up their bridles and rode off, their scabbards clinking, to prevent the fugitive’s escape.
A howl of contempt went up from the crowd. The pink and white subaltern made what was almost a movement of the arm to intercept his superior’s command.
It was too much for Long Jim’s last mate, the youthful blackbeard who had pluckily descended the shaft after the accident. He had been standing on a mound with a posse of others, following the man-hunt. At his partner’s crack-brained dash for the open, his snorts of indignation found words. “Gaw-blimy! . . . is the old fool gone dotty?” Then he drew a whistling breath. “No, it’s more than flesh and blood . . . . Stand back, boys!” And though he was as little burdened with a licence as the man under pursuit, he shouted: “Help, help! . . . for God’s sake, don’t let ’em have me!” shot down the slope, and was off like the wind.
His foxly object was attained. The attention of the hunters was diverted. Long Jim, seizing the moment, vanished underground.
The younger man ran with the lightness of a hare. He had also the hare’s address in doubling and turning. His pursuers never knew, did he pass from sight behind a covert of tents and mounds, where he would bob up next. He avoided shafts and pools as if by a miracle; ran along greasy planks without a slip; and, where these had been removed to balk the police, he jumped the holes, taking risks that were not for a sane man. Once he fell, but, enslimed from head to foot, wringing wet and hatless, was up again in a twinkling. His enemies were less sure-footed than he, and times without number measured their length on the oily ground. Still, one of them was gaining rapidly on him, a giant of a fellow with long thin legs; and soon the constable’s foot filled the prints left by the young man’s, while these were still warm. It was a fine run. The diggers trooped after in a body; the Flat rang with cheers and plaudits. Even the Commissioner and his retinue trotted in the same direction. Eventually the runaway must land in the arms of the mounted police.

a gold-tressed jacket came into view

On the summit of one of the clay heaps, a woman shot into silhouette against the sky. An odd figure, clad in a skimpy green petticoat, with a scarlet shawl held about her shoulders, wisps of frowsy red hair standing out round her head, she balanced herself on the slippery earth, spinning her arm like the vane of a windmill, and crying at the top of her voice: “Joe, boys!— Joe, Joe, Joey!”
It was as if, with these words, she had dropped a live shell in the diggers’ midst. A general stampede ensued; in which the cry was caught up, echoed and re-echoed, till the whole Flat rang with the name of “Joe.” Tools were dropped, cradles and tubs abandoned, windlasses left to kick their cranks backwards. Many of the workers took to their heels; others, in affright, scuttled aimlessly hither and thither, like barnyard fowls in a panic. Summoned by shouts of: “Up with you, boys!— the traps are here!” numbers ascended from below to see the fun, while as many went hurriedly down to hiding in drive or chamber. Even those diggers who could pat the pocket in which their licence lay ceased work, and stood about with sullen faces to view the course of events. Only the group of Chinamen washing tail-heaps remained unmoved. One of them, to whom the warning woman belonged, raised his head and called a Chinese word at her; she obeyed it instantly, vanished into thin air; the rest went impassively on with their fossicking. They were not such fools as to try to cheat the Government of its righteous dues. None but had his licence safely folded in his nosecloth, and thrust inside the bosom of his blouse.
Through the labyrinth of tents and mounds, a gold-laced cap could be seen approaching; then a gold-tressed jacket came into view, the white star on the forehead of a mare. Behind the Commissioner, who rode down thus from the Camp, came the members of his staff; these again were followed by a body of mounted troopers. They drew rein on the slope, and simultaneously a line of foot police, backed by a detachment of light infantry, shot out like an arm, and walled in the Flat to the south.
On the appearance of the enemy the babel redoubled. There were groans and cat-calls. Along with the derisive “Joeys!” the rebel diggers hurled any term of abuse that came to their lips. The Commissioner, a horse-faced, solemn man with brown side whiskers, let the reins droop on his mare’s neck and sat unwinking in the tumult. His mien was copied by his staff. Only one of them, a very young boy who was new to the colony and his post, changed colour under his gaudy cap, went from white to pink and from pink to white again; while at each fresh insult he gave a perceptible start, and gazed dumbfounded at his chief’s insensitive back.
The “bloodhounds” had begun to track their prey. Rounding up, with a skill born of long practice, they drove the diggers before them towards the centre of the Flat. Here they passed from group to group and from hole to hole, calling for the production of licences with an insolence that made its object see red. They were nice of scent, too, and, nine times in ten, pounced on just those unfortunates who, through carelessness, or lack of means, or on political grounds, had failed to take out the month’s licence to dig for gold. Every few minutes one or another was marched off between two constables to the Government Camp, for fine or imprisonment.

a field-labourer might have worn

The group of men assembled in that retired spot were evidently Hebrews, and as the eyes of Lycidas became accustomed to the gloom, and the ascending moon had more power to disperse it, he intuitively singled out one from amongst them as the leader and chief of the rest. Not that his tunic and mantle were of richer materials than those of his comrades; plain and dusty with travel were the sandals upon his feet, and he wore the simple white turban which a field-labourer might have worn. But never had turban been folded around a more majestic brow, and the form wrapped in the mantle had the unconscious dignity which marks those born to command. The very tread of his sandalled feet reminded the Athenian of that of the desert lion, and from the dark deep-set eye glanced the calm soul of a hero.
"Here be the place," said the chief, if such he were, pointing to the earth under the branches of the very tree against the trunk of which, on the further side, the temple of Lycidas was pressed, as he bent eagerly forward to watch and to listen.
Not a word was uttered in reply; but the men around, after laying aside their upper garments, set to work to dig what appeared to be a wide trench. The leader himself threw off his mantle, took a spade, and laboured with energy, bringing the whole force of his powerful muscles to bear on his humble toil. All worked in profound silence, nor paused in their labour except now and then to listen, like men to whom danger had taught some caution.
Whilst the men went on with their digging, Lycidas strained his eyes to distinguish the outlines of a group at some paces' distance, which doubtless, though separated from them, belonged to the same party as those so actively employed before him. Two forms appeared to be seated on the ground in a spot evidently chosen for its seclusion; one of them was clothed in dark garments, the other was shrouded in a large white linen veil. Other figures in white seemed to be stretched upon the ground in repose. Lycidas watched this silent group for hours, and all remained motionless as marble, save that ever and anon the dark female figure slightly swayed backwards and forwards with a rocking motion, and that several times the veiled head was turned with a quick movement, as of alarm, when the breeze rustled in the olives a little more loudly than usual, or bore sounds from the city to the woman's sensitive ear.
Meanwhile the work of digging proceeded steadily, and the mound of earth thrown out grew large, for the arms of those who laboured were strong and willing, and no man paused either to rest or to speak save once. It was almost a relief to Lycidas to hear at last the sound of a human voice from one of those phantom-like toilers by night. He who spoke was the fiercest-looking of the band, with something of the wildness of Ishmael's race on features whose high strongly-marked outlines showed the Hebrew cast of countenance in its most exaggerated type.

the mind of Lycidas in an excited and feverish state

And with a somewhat constrained interchange of parting courtesies, the free Greek and the sycophant of a tyrant went on their several ways. The scene which he had witnessed had left the mind of Lycidas in an excited and feverish state. The cooling breeze which whispered amongst the leaves of the olives, and the solitude of the secluded place where Pollux had left him, were refreshing to the young Greek's spirit. He threw himself on the grass beneath one of the trees, leant against its trunk, and gazed upwards at the stars as, one by one, they appeared, like gems studding the deep azure sky.
"Are these brave spirits now reigning in one of these orbs of beauty?" thought the poet; "or are the stars themselves living souls, spirits freed from the chains of matter, shining for ever in the firmament above? I must know more of that Hebrew religion, and seek out those who can initiate me into its mysteries, if it be lawful for a stranger to learn them."
And then the thoughts of Lycidas turned to his poem, and he tried to throw into verse some of the ideas suggested to his mind by the martyrdoms which he had witnessed, but he speedily gave up the attempt in despair.
"Poetic ornament would but mar the grand outlines of such a history," he murmured to himself; "who would carve flowers upon the pyramids, or crown with daisies an obelisk pointing to the skies!"
Gradually sleep stole over the young Greek, his head drooped upon his arm, his eyelids closed, and he slumbered long and deeply.
Lycidas was awakened by sounds near him, low and subdued, the cautious tread of many feet, the smothered whisper, and the faint rustle of garments. The Athenian opened his eyes, and gazed from his place of concealment behind the thick branching stem of the olive on a strange and striking scene.
The moon, full and round, had just risen, but the foliage of the trees as yet obscured most of her light, as her silver lamp hung near the horizon, casting long black shadows over the earth. Several forms were moving about in the faint gleam, apparently engaged in some work which needed concealment, for none of them carried a torch. Lycidas, himself silent as the grave, watched the movements of those before him with a curiosity which for a time so engrossed his mind as to take away all sense of personal danger, though he soon became aware that the intrusion of a stranger on these mysterious midnight proceedings would not only be unwelcome, but might to himself be perilous.