Lloyd

“ As for Lloyd, when she came out of her room, her dress trailing behind her like a soft, pure-white cloud, so light and airy it seemed as if it must have been woven on some fairy loom, and with a great cluster of lilies-of-the-valley in her hands, she looked to me just like one of her own lilies. Poor old Mom Beck, who had dressed her, stood behind her with the tears streaming down her black face, saying, "Honey, you sho'ly nevah will look moah like a blessed angel when you git through the pearly gates than you do this minute!" ”

“ Lloyd, a benevolent, fervid man, not without genius, if genius be present where judgment is absent; not without science, if that may be science which fails in precision,—one of those clever desultory men who, in adopting a profession, do not give up to it the whole force and heat of their minds. Men of that kind habitually accept a mechanical routine, because in the exercise of their ostensible calling their imaginative faculties are drawn away to pursuits more alluring. ”

“ A few minutes later Mrs. Lloyd was startled by a hasty rap at the door, and on opening it beheld her husband supported between two men, his face ghastly pale, and stained with blood from a wound on his forehead. She was a brave woman, and although her heart almost stood still with agonised apprehension, she did not lose control of herself for an instant. ”

“ Like a flash it came to Lloyd that he was free. Free to go “over the top” with his Company. Free to die like a true Briton fighting for his King and Country. A great gladness and warmth came over him. Carefully stepping over the body of the sentry, he started on a mad race down the ruined street of the village, amid the bursting shells, minding them not, dodging through or around hurrying platoons on their way to also go “over the top.” Coming to a communication trench he could not get through. It was blocked with laughing, cheering, and cursing soldiers. ”

“ Lloyd had no family ties to Philadelphia. He preferred a country life; not supinely to dream away existence, but he hoped there to cultivate and employ a "talent for doing good;" that talent which a noble adventurer declared he most valued, and which, though there is a field for its exercise, wherever any members of the human family are, he compassed sea and land to find new worlds in which to expend it. ”

“ She was amazed when Lloyd called to her that they were going down to lunch. She had sat the entire morning wrapped in her steamer-rug, looking out across the water with far-seeing eyes. As the blue waves rose and fell, her thoughts had risen and swayed to their rhythmic motion, and begun to shape themselves into rhyme. Line after line was taking form, and she wished impatiently that Lloyd had not called her. How could one be hungry when some inward power, past understanding, was making music in one's soul? ”

“ THE HOISTING.
Mrs. Lloyd gave Bert a more than usually affectionate kiss as he started off for school next morning, and his father called after him:
"Remember, Bert, quit you like a man."
Yet who could blame the little fellow if his heart throbbed with unwonted vigour all that morning, and that he watched the clock's hands anxiously as they crept slowly, but steadily, round the dial, yellow with age and service.
Frank had adopted an unconcerned, if not defiant air, which told plainly enough that he had no idea of submitting quietly to the inevitable ordeal. He was a born fighter. ”

“ With her pity and compassion for the sick child there arose in Lloyd a certain unreasoned, intuitive obstinacy, a banding together of all her powers and faculties in one great effort at resistance, a steadfastness under great stress, a stubbornness, that shut its ears and eyes. It was her one dominant characteristic rising up, strong and insistent the instant she knew herself to be thwarted in her desires or checked in a course she believed to be right and good. ”

“ Lloyd. Jane rose, embarrassed for her aunt and herself, and walked to the window. Mrs. Wilson attempted to speak, to rise; she could do neither, and she sunk back on her chair, convulsed with misery and passion. Mr. Lloyd mistook her agitation for the natural wailings of a mother, and with instinctive benevolence he advanced to her, and kindly taking her hand, said, "Be composed, I pray; I have intelligence that will comfort thee." ”

“ Lloyd tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to conceal a smile beneath his moustache.
"Well, mother, that's what they all call her," explained Bert.
"Even though they do, Bert, you should not. Miss Poster is a lady, and you must act the gentleman toward her," replied Mrs. Lloyd. "But why don't you want to go to school there? Several boys about your own age are going."
"Oh, because a lot of girls go there, and I don't want to go to school with girls," was Master Bert's ungallant reply. ”

“ Gilbert Lloyd's friends--by which expression is meant the men of the set in which he regularly lived--saw little of Mrs. Lloyd, who was popularly supposed by them to be next to a nonentity, Lloyd being a man who "always had his own way." And indeed, so far as those words were ordinarily understood, Gilbert Lloyd's acquaintances were right. For months and months his comings and goings, his long absences, his conduct while at home, had been uncommented upon by Gertrude, save in the expression of her face and in the tone of her voice. ”

“ Lloyd waited in anticipation, guessing at what she was going to tell him. "Our servant, Boy, is Brook's and mine, natural son." she finished and observed a trifle grin spread over Lloyd's face. Somehow, he had anticipated correctly, and he felt himself to be the most privileged of men, to have such high trust and confidence bestowed on him. A fortunate man, who not more than a week ago was dragged into their house, a near-dead stranger. ”

“ By nature cool, crafty, and clear-headed, and from long practice in matters in which the exercise of those qualities is constantly required, Lloyd was by no means a man to suffer himself to remain blind to any danger which might threaten him. ”

“ Lloyd stole a quick glance at him to see if he were in earnest. The light tone seemed almost mocking, but the half-closed eyes gazing out across the lawn were serious enough, and she studied her reply a moment, feeling that maybe her opportunity had come at last.
"I think," she began timidly, "that the man who gets the most out of life is the one who makes most of himself—who starts out as they did in the old days to win his spurs and his accolade. ”

“ Lloyd, it is true, was a good deal shocked at first, and Mr. Lloyd questioned him very closely; but when they heard the whole story, much of which, indeed, was already familiar to them, they both agreed that under the circumstances Bert could not have acted otherwise, without placing himself in a false position.
"At the same time, Bert, dear," said his father, laying his hand upon his shoulder, "as it is your first, so I hope it will be your last fight. You have established your reputation for courage now. You can sustain it in other ways than by your fists." ”

“ Lloyd with a tremulous accent, and his dim eyes suffused with tears—“Caroline!—ay, truly her daughter would be named Caroline.” An instant after, he added, drawing himself up with an air of pride and some sternness: “Caroline Lloyd, sir, is a person who, by birth, and, I doubt not, character and attainments, is a fitting match for the son of the proudest merchant of this proud city.” ”

“ Lloyd. "What do you mean?"
"Why, they hang them up on the fence, and then pound them. It hurts awfully. Robbie Simpson told me about it. They hoisted him the first day."
"Humph!" said Mr. Lloyd. "I must say I don't like that, but at the worst I suppose you can survive it, just as the others have done. Is there any other reason why you wouldn't like to go to Dr. Johnston's?"
"Well, father, you know he has a dreadful strap, most a yard long, and he gives the boys dreadful whippings with it."
"Suppose he has, Bert; does he whip the boys who know their lessons, and behave properly in school?" ”

“ There never was a finer gentleman than old Doctor Lloyd. He was always doing kindnesses to everybody; and he had a way of doing them that made you feel as if you was doing the favour, not him. Well, well, let Old Lady Lloyd keep herself and her money to herself if she wants to. If she doesn’t want our company, she doesn’t have to suffer it, that’s all. ”

“ Lloyd George, who is pre-eminently a man capable of looking you straight in the eye, is depicted as looking someone else obliquely in the eye. I would that his strong features had been accompanied by a direct and thoughtful gaze, instead of that petulant side-glance, which to all of us who know the smiling candour of the Minister of Munitions is so foreign an expression.
I cannot speak with authority about the sitter's raiment. At the same time I must register my dislike of these clothes, which appear to have the mud of the golf-links still fresh upon them. ”

“ Lloyd, a young gentleman of very pleasant address, came on board the Cutter, and was introduced to the several gentlemen and myself.
He told us that his father was gone to Easton on business, expressed his regret at his absence, hoped he would return before we should leave, and in the meantime received us cordially and invited us ashore, escorted us over the grounds, and gave us as hearty a welcome as we could have wished. I hope I shall be pardoned for speaking of this incident with much complacency. It was one which could happen to but few men, and only once in the life time of any. ”

“ He was so accustomed to being washed and brushed and dressed that he made no objection to what most children of that age consider an unnecessary process, and when Lloyd went about it with unpractised fingers, he gravely corrected her mistakes, and laughed when she made a play of the buttonholes being hungry mouths, that swallowed the buttons in a hurry. Never in her life had she exerted herself so much to be entertaining, for she wanted to take him away without a scene. She wanted, too, for him to look his best, that he might win his own way at The Locusts. ”

“ As he moved, Gilbert Lloyd moved too, taking up his position close behind him, and watching him narrowly. For an instant a deep look of anxiety played across Gilbert Lloyd's face, the lines round the mouth deepened and darkened, the brows came down over the sunken eyes, and the under jaw, relaxing, lost its aspect of determination; but as Mr. Muxky turned from the bed and addressed him, Lloyd's glance was perfectly steady, and his face expressed no emotions stronger than those which under the circumstances every man would be expected to feel, and no man would care to hide. ”

“ And, doubtless, to poor Lloyd himself, it must a thousandfold have aggravated his sufferings—that he could trace, with a steady eye, the continual growth of that hideous malady which was stealing over the else untroubled azure of his life, and with inaudible foot was hastening onwards for ever to that night in which no man can work, and in which no man can hope. ”

“ Lloyd disliked in children, and, therefore, dreaded for his boy, it was that forward, conscious air which comes of too much attention being paid them in the presence of their elders. "Little folks should be seen and not heard," he would say kindly but firmly to Bert, when that young person was disposed to unduly assert himself, and Bert rarely failed to take the hint. ”

“ He could not retort, in sheer humanity he could not flame out in petulance at the man whose life was to be placed in most hideous jeopardy in half an hour, balanced on the flicker of an eyelash, lost in a momentary quiver of the nerves. But Lloyd truly felt that his trials increased in a regular ratio with the demonstration of his capacity to sustain them. Sometimes he thought that a sudden sarcasm, an outbreak of the vexation that stirred him might over-awe Haxon, elicit his self-control, and serve really to steady his nerves. ”

“ He's well born and talented and rich and fairly good-looking. He's so entertaining one never tires of his company, good-hearted and generous to a fault, and—Oh Lloyd, please say you'll take enough interest to keep him keyed up to the right pitch for awhile. It's all he lacks to make a splendid man."
"Do you know, I think that's a mighty big lack," said Lloyd, honestly. "I've had strings on my harp that wouldn't stay strung. It's the most exasperating thing in the world. You know how it is, with a violin. ”

“ Lloyd asked. As she hurried up the stairs, her heart beating with excitement, she whispered to herself, "Oh, if he should happen to be lost or hurt, and Hero should find him, it would be the loveliest thing that evah happened."
Hero seemed to know, from the moment he saw the little flask marked with the well-known Red Cross, what was expected of him. All the guests in the inn gathered around the door to see him start on his uncertain quest. He sniffed excitedly at his master's slipper, which Lloyd held out to him. ”

“ Only the appearance and manner of Lloyd caused him to doubt his conclusion, and then he wondered at himself that the endowments of unusual personal beauty, a thing valueless in a man, absolutely apart from character or station, a gift, an accident, together with a grave and gentlemanly address, which was also a fortuitous circumstance, should weigh with him for an instant where an itinerant faker was concerned. ”

“ Lloyd's early career as a physician had not been brilliant; but of late years he had gradually rather aged than worked himself into that professional authority and station which time confers on a thoroughly respectable man whom no one is disposed to envy, and all are disposed to like.
Now in L—— there were two distinct social circles,—that of the wealthy merchants and traders, and that of a few privileged families inhabiting a part of the town aloof from the marts of commerce, and called the Abbey Hill. ”