登陆注册
5287900000060

第60章 CHAPTER XVI(1)

ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS.

Myrtle Hazard waited until the steps of Master Byles Gridley had ceased to be heard, as he walked in his emphatic way through the long entry of the old mansion. Then she went to her little chamber and sat down in a sort of revery. She could not doubt his sincerity, and there was something in her own consciousness which responded to the suspicions he had expressed with regard to the questionable impulses of the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker.

It is not in the words that others say to us, but in those other words which these make us say to ourselves, that we find our gravest lessons and our sharpest rebukes. The hint another gives us finds whole trains of thought which have been getting themselves ready to be shaped in inwardly articulated words, and only awaited the touch of a burning syllable, as the mottoes of a pyrotechnist only wait for a spark to become letters of fire.

The artist who takes your photograph must carry you with him into his "developing" room, and he will give you a more exact illustration of the truth just mentioned. There is nothing to be seen on the glass just taken from the camera. But there is a potential, though invisible, picture hid in the creamy film which covers it. Watch him as he pours a wash over it, and you will see that miracle wrought which is at once a surprise and a charm,--the sudden appearance of your own features where a moment before was a blank without a vestige of intelligence or beauty.

In some such way the grave warnings of Master Byles Gridley had called up a fully shaped, but hitherto unworded, train of thought in the consciousness of Myrtle Hazard. It was not merely their significance, it was mainly because they were spoken at the fitting time. If they had been uttered a few weeks earlier, when Myrtle was taking the first stitch on the embroidered slippers, they would have been as useless as the artist's developing solution on a plate which had never been exposed in the camera. But she had been of late in training for her lesson in ways that neither she nor anybody else dreamed of. The reader who has shrugged his (or her) shoulders over the last illustration will perhaps hear this one which follows more cheerfully. The physician in the Arabian Nights made his patient play at ball with a bat, the hollow handle of which contained drugs of marvellous efficacy. Whether it was the drugs that made the sick man get well, or the exercise, is not of so much consequence as the fact that he did at any rate get well.

These walks which Myrtle had taken with her reverend counsellor had given her a new taste for the open air, which was what she needed just now more than confessions of faith or spiritual paroxysms. And so it happened that, while he had been stimulating all those imaginative and emotional elements of her nature which responded to the keys he loved to play upon, the restoring influences of the sweet autumnal air, the mellow sunshine, the soothing aspects of the woods and fields and sky, had been quietly doing their work. The color was fast returning to her cheek, and the discords of her feelings and her thoughts gradually resolving themselves into the harmonious and cheerful rhythms of bodily and mental health. It needed but the timely word from the fitting lips to change the whole programme of her daily mode of being. The word had been spoken. She saw its truth; but how hard it is to tear away a cherished illusion, to cast out an unworthy intimate! How hard for any!--but for a girl so young, and who had as yet found so little to love and trust, how cruelly hard!

She sat, still and stony, like an Egyptian statue. Her eyes were fixed on a vacant chair opposite the one on which she was sitting.

It was a very singular and fantastic old chair, said to have been brought over by the first emigrant of her race. The legs and arms were curiously turned in spirals, the suggestions of which were half pleasing and half repulsive. Instead of the claw-feet common in furniture of a later date, each of its legs rested on a misshapen reptile, which it seemed to flatten by its weight, as if it were squeezing the breath out of the ugly creature. Over this chair hung the portrait of her beautiful ancestress, her neck and arms, the specialty of her beauty, bare, except for a bracelet on the left wrist, and her shapely figure set off by the ample folds of a rich crimson brocade. Over Myrtle's bed hung that other portrait, which was to her almost as the pictures of the Mater Dolorosa to trustful souls of the Roman faith. She had longed for these pictures while she was in her strange hysteric condition, and they had been hung up in her chamber.

The night was far gone, as she knew by the declining of the constellations which she bad seen shining brightly almost overhead in the early evening, when she awoke, and found herself still sitting in the very attitude in which she was sitting hours before. Her lamp had burned out, and the starlight but dimly illuminated her chamber.

同类推荐
  • The History of the Common Law of England

    The History of the Common Law of England

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 张卿子伤寒论

    张卿子伤寒论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 杨忠愍集

    杨忠愍集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 禅灯世谱

    禅灯世谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 炀帝迷楼记

    炀帝迷楼记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 大神引入怀之惹火鲜妻别想逃

    大神引入怀之惹火鲜妻别想逃

    她是凤阳赫赫有名的纨绔千金,他是商圈炙手可热的青年才俊,一场看似各取所需的联姻,完全没有交集的两人纠缠在了一起。他沉静如山,她热情似火,他冷眼旁观,她步步紧逼。“苏昀,我再警告你最后一次,适可而止。”他危险的眯起眸子,看着近在咫尺的容颜,浑身都散发出慑人的气息。女人闻之,非但没有露怯,反而又凑近了些,笃定般轻笑“哦?我偏不...你做什么?”惊慌的声音变成了低低的呜咽
  • 逃家皇后

    逃家皇后

    她给了他一世的温暖,他却要将她打入地狱,让她饱受摧残,他是不是很残忍?可是这一切只因他爱她,爱的无可救药,爱的只要她有一丝分心,他便嫉妒,无可救药的嫉妒,哪怕没有对象!她心碎,眼泪想要放肆的流下,却强忍了起来。她声音有些颤抖的说你可以不爱我,但是不要让我知道--你不爱我,这样我可以一直活在我的梦里。
  • 穿越之盛世宠妃

    穿越之盛世宠妃

    苏月,从小被父母遗弃的孤儿,与同样是孤儿的姐妹凌晓晓,程浩一起长大,之后更是和程浩互生情愫,本来就快要结婚了,却在出差提前回来的时候看到最好的姐妹和最爱的男人一起,背叛了她。伤心的她犊子走在街上,却又被大货车撞了,直接把脑电波穿越到了一个在历史上没有出现的国家,而那个女子刚好被未婚夫退婚,想不开跳楼,于是从这个时空穿越到了另一个时空,而且都叫苏月,从此用另一个人的身体活着。本来不相信爱,不相信一切,却又遇见了一次一次不顾性命救自己的男人,偏偏这个男人是个身负血海深仇的人,于是带着爱,带着他和自己的仇恨,一步步让那些害自己的人都死无葬身之地。。。
  • 心里有个兵工厂

    心里有个兵工厂

    一个从小被抓进土匪窝的修枪匠一个被人挤占灵魂的可怜娃和一个可歌可泣的抗战故事 新书铁流铸宋已上传,欢迎加入!
  • 娱乐之永不再见

    娱乐之永不再见

    俯卧在树荫下哭泣,望着那个素不相识的自己,乐器为逝去的人弹奏,流星因不归之人而陨落(HY平行世界,不喜勿入)
  • 贞观魔王

    贞观魔王

    贞观年间虽说成就千古一帝,但是灾难颇多,史献计载,除了贞观五年外几乎无一年不是水灾、旱灾、蝗灾频发,饥民遍野,更有渭水之盟的耻辱。主角重生在贞观年间,这一切自然便不再是问题,饥饿不存在的。大唐帝国版图必定会更大,多灾多难的大唐必定不再需要帝王罪己诏来安民心!欢迎加群qq:941534781
  • 刁徒难养:仙师,快到碗里来

    刁徒难养:仙师,快到碗里来

    他是神界至高无上的幻莲神尊,冷俊强大,万人仰慕;她是天生孤煞之星,弱小卑微,人人欺辱。而她,却成了他唯一的徒弟。“师傅,一日为师,终生为夫,徒儿铭记在心。”
  • 贞一斋稿

    贞一斋稿

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 中国好诗歌:最美的白话诗

    中国好诗歌:最美的白话诗

    《中国好诗歌:最美的白话诗》新文化运动的结晶——最美的自由新诗。新诗是自由的,也是自然的。它不是没有形式,而是有着与古典诗词不一样的艺术形式,自由就是它的形式;它不是没有节奏,自然就是它的节奏,它与现代人的呼吸节奏相呼应,与现代人的情绪起伏相合拍。新诗是生活化的,是“言文一致”的产物,日常话语和书面话语在新诗这种文体里找到了最大的交集。新诗又具有最为宽广的想象视野和表达空间,可以在时间与空间上做最大程度的穿越和嫁接,我把新诗的这种宽广想象与表达比喻为神奇的“穿越术”。这就是新诗的美学奥秘。囊括了郭沫若、卞之琳、徐志摩等中国现代著名诗人的作品和艾青、臧克家等中国当代著名诗人的作品。
  • 说好的国师变皇后

    说好的国师变皇后

    白穆清,带着转世的秘密,领师命出山助战王燕贺瑾统一天下,为取信陷战无援的燕贺瑾,她掩却女儿身,借风势,用孔明灯计烧粮草,环环相扣,计倾营军!登朝廷,于幕后,算尽人心,可前世的片段记忆、居心叵测的师父,让她目不接暇!何人意敢利用于她!且看携手一心钟情于她的帝王心,破迷雾,杀阴谋、夺天下!逆袭激来!可皇上,说好的国师,咋变成了皇后?