Osborn

“ You'll have to warn Osborn, my dear. Men need reminding so often."
"Osborn is rather different from most men," said Marie. "He is so very thoughtful; he made me some tea early this morning, and did the dining-room grate, and lighted the geyser, and everything."
"That won't last, my dear," replied Mrs. Amber, in a tone of quiet authority, but not lamenting.
"Osborn is not a man who changes, mother," said Marie. ”

“ Horton or her daughter, but she determined to use them as a means to an end. In most things Mrs. Osborn would have been considered an average woman—no better, no worse. Her desire, her ambition, her mania, however, to enter into English social circles was paramount to all other considerations. It was the gaunt tigress of her nature, famishing with desire, ready with hidden tooth and claw to pounce upon every opposition. ”

“ No; he that would get rid of that work with a whole back had need to be more than lithe and lissom, and he must fly about faster than a bladder or a bird's wing.
"Well, well, it was all no good, however bad it might be," said Osborn Boots. He would go to the king's grange and serve the king, for no lesser man would he serve, and he would soon keep the hares. They couldn't well be worse than the goat and calf at home. ”

“ Won’t the dominie let you?” asked Osborn, with a scornful curl of his lip.
“The dominie, as you call him, has nothing to do with it. I don’t choose to get myself into a scrape,” returned Leon loftily, for the slighting allusion to his brother irritated him more than he cared to admit.
“Just as you say,” responded Osborn indifferently. “You’ll come, won’t you, Max?”
“Dässent,” responded Max, with an indescribable flattening of the word. “I can’t afford to get a rep, for the paternal has promised me a new bicycle in the spring, if I’ll get up to a first lieutenancy by that time. ”

“ By what Osborn considered a most serious error in judgment, the Pioneer, with the other ships of the expedition, was abandoned on 20 Aug. 1854, the officers and men being brought to England by the North Star, Phœnix, and Talbot on 28 Sept. (Discovery of a North-West Passage, pp. 266–7) . The long and difficult service in the Arctic, including five summers and three winters, had severely tried Osborn's health, and for some little time he had charge of the coastguard in Norfolk. ”

“ On 4 May 1846 Osborn was promoted to be lieutenant of the Collingwood, in which he returned to England in the summer of 1848. He then had command of the Dwarf, a small steamer, employed during the disturbances of the year on the coast of Ireland. In 1849, when public attention was turned to the fate of Sir John Franklin, Osborn entered into the question with enthusiasm and energy, and in 1850 was appointed to command the Pioneer steam-tender in the arctic expedition under Captain Austin in the Resolute. ”

“ So, far in the East, among the Yezidis, or Worshippers of the Devil, so-called, the Chaldaeans, and others, according to the testimony of travellers, you may still hear these remarkable disputations on doctrinal points going on. Osborn was, accordingly, dismissed, and he removed to Boston, where he kept school for many years. But he was fully justified, methinks, by his works in the peat-meadow; one proof of which is, that he lived to be between ninety and one hundred years old. ”

“ But when he reached the grange, and was going to pull out his pipe, he fared no better than the women folk; he hadn't the pipe any more than they, and there came Osborn Boots driving home the flock of hares, and not a hair was missing. The king was both spiteful and wroth, to think that he had fooled them all round, and cheated him out of the pipe as well; and now he said Boots must lose his life, there was no question of it, and the queen said the same: it was best to put such a rogue out of the way red-handed. ”

“ William H. Osborn was a native of Massachusetts, 369 and was by birth of no exalted position in the world. His chief capital was a clear brain and an unclouded purpose, which later ripened into a farsightedness in large affairs that has rarely been equaled in the ranks of practical American men. Sent to the East Indies as the representative of a New York firm, he got a good insight into the trade in spices, and was successful in its operation. ”

“ They had had no holiday one year in consequence, but had grilled in Sheffield throughout August and September. But during those months she had worn the emeralds every evening, and it had been a sort of renewal of the honeymoon. Though they had not been able to go away themselves, they had managed to send Percy and Claude to the seaside, and the two months in Sheffield, when every night she wore the emeralds which had been the cause of their remaining there, was still one of Mrs. Osborne’s most delightful memories, as a sort of renewed honeymoon. ”

“ Osborn to you? It might help us to act more intelligently.”
“That’s right, Hugh, do not speak of her as my wife,” replied the captain. “I told you once that my wife could do no wrong; neither can she, for a woman ceases to be a wife when she dishonors her marriage vows. Go to the hotel and secure the other letter, if possible. I shall be very impatient for your return.”
Hugh left Captain Osborn alone in his room, and half an hour later returned.
“I found this letter, Captain, pushed partly under Lord Avondale’s door,” said he. ”

“ Osborn Boots and Mr. Glibtongue
ONCE on a time there was a king who had many hundred sheep, and many hundred goats and kine, and many hundred horses he had too, and silver and gold in great heaps. But for all that he was so given to grief, that he seldom or ever saw folk, much less said a word to them. Such he had been ever since his youngest daughter was lost; and if he had never lost her, it would still have been bad enough, for there was a Troll who was for ever making such waste and worry there, that folk could hardly pass to the king's grange in peace. ”

“ Osborn drove up, and they all went in to dinner. As the meal progressed, Hugh was satisfied that the relations between Mrs. Osborn and her husband had not materially improved.
“I presume,” remarked the captain, “that this distinguished surgeon, Dr. Lenox Avondale, will take up his quarters at the Grove, and stay indefinitely. It’s a great deal cheaper than stopping at a public hotel.” ”

“ Around him, beneath him, lay London, hushed in sleep. In no other part of the world was peaceful man so secure as in London. He had but to ring a bell, break a pane of glass, and shout, to summon succour sufficient to overwhelm a hundred assassins. What chilled and terrified Osborne was no dread of violence from without. There was nothing outside this room of which he stood in fear. And yet he trembled and felt cold and tremulously alarmed. No spectre of a wrong done by him rose up before his eyes. ”

“ He now spoke of Osborne to Elizabeth without acrimony. "My indignation against that man was all thrown away," he said; "we do not rebuke the elements when they destroy us, and why should we spend our anger against men?—a word from Osborne, they say, would save me—the falling of the wind, or the allaying of the waves, would have saved Alithea—both are beyond our control. ”

“ There is one of my acquaintance, the famous Samuel Johnson, to whom I should like to introduce you; but, with his invincible hatred of puns, it might prove dangerous."
"Wit is the least of Doctor Byle's qualifications," said Henry Osborne.
"Young man, I am not a woman. My constitution does not need the gilded pills of flattery," replied the Doctor. ”

“ The tears started to Miss Osborne's eyes, and forgetting that her remark would imply a keen reproof to her thoughtless friend, she said, "What have I done, that you should accuse me of being deficient in the delicacy which should ever characterize a lady?"
"Who would think of defending herself from a charge that has no foundation?" rejoined Lucretia, putting her arms round her neck, with girlish affection.
"What is the matter, young ladies?" inquired Henry Osborne, who entered the library at that moment.
"Nothing,---only I have offended Grace, as I often do the Graces," answered Lucretia ”

“ All that day down at Grote they waited for news from Sir Henry, but none came. Lord Osborne, always optimistic, saw the most hopeful significance in his silence.
“Depend upon it, my dear,” he said to Dora as she went to bed that night, “depend upon it Sir Henry has seen my lady again, and has quite forgotten that we might be in some anxiety, because, as he knows now, forgetting he ain’t told us, there’s nought to be anxious about. That’s like those busy men—Lord, my dear! fancy passing your life in other people’s insides, so to speak—why it would make you forget your own name. ”

“ On their way home, Somerville walked with Miss Osborne; and Lucretia, of course, accepted the proffered arm of Mr. Osborne.
Oh, how dangerous may one brief evening prove to the sliding hearts of the youthful and the guileless; and how tasteless is every thing in life, compared with the sparkling cup that young love offers before we know his name.
Grace returned home with an elasticity of spirit unusual to her placid nature ”

“ He crept toward the tea table, looked at his brother’s hand, which was held out in salutation, as if it was an insect, rejected it, and sat down pulling his shawl more closely about his shoulders.
“Fresh from your triumphs in the House, my dear Edward!” he said. “You positively reek of prosperity. You seem to be hot.”
“Well, I’m what I seem then,” said Mr. Osborne with great good nature. He could not possibly be other than polite to brother Alfred, who was to make Claude his heir, even if he had been tempted to do so. ”

“ Osborne warmly seconded his sister's wish, and extended a polite invitation to the uncle of his friend.
"I see no reason why you should leave us at all to-night, my dear Miss Osborne," said Hutchinson.
"Why Grace would think me a lunatic if I should propose to her to live one night without her father's kiss and blessing" said Lucretia.
"And not far from right, my mad-capped niece," replied he, playfully touching her shoulder. "However, as you both will; you know your lovely friend is always welcome twenty-four hours in a day." ”

“ Even in later times her white skin and yellow hair were admired, though Osborne, in his ‘Traditionall Memoyres,’ unkindly describes the former as ‘far more amiable than the features it covered.’ But though the world and she might now seem to smile on one another, there were other reasons besides her youth and good looks why it behoved her to move warily in the strange court and country in which her lot had fallen. ”

“ He believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most generous of created boys. He shared his money with him: bought him uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee, Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured pictures of knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, Esquire, from his attached friend William Dobbin—the which tokens of homage George received very graciously, as became his superior merit. ”

“ But though they met at the breakfast-table, they purposely avoided addressing each other. Perhaps the natural subject of conversation between the two, at such a time, would have been Osborne's long journey the night before; but he had never spoken of the place he had come from, whether north, south, east, or west, and the squire did not choose to allude to anything that might bring out what his son wished to conceal. ”

“ After all, Miss Osborne, though a baron's daughter and living in a castle, might have the tastes which are to be found amongst the dwellers in parsonages—though she travelled in a coach and four, she might love variety and novelty as much as the driver of the humblest one-horse chaise, and the prospect of forming a new acquaintance might have many charms for her on a snowy day when her time would probably hang heavy on her hands. ”

“ While he had been at college his allowance— heir of the Hamleys—had been three hundred, while Roger had to be content with a hundred less. The payment of these annual sums had given the squire a good deal of trouble; but he thought of it as a merely temporary inconvenience, perhaps unreasonably thought so. Osborne was to do great things; take high honours, get a fellowship, marry a long- descended heiress, live in some of the many uninhabited rooms at the Hall, and help the squire in the management of the estate that would some time be his. Roger was to be a clergyman ”

“ It was now half-past ten, and a message came in from the drawing-room as to whether the gentlemen would take their coffee in the dining room or have it with the music. This caused a break-up, the three young men, Austell, Claude, and Franklin going out, leaving the rest at the table.
“Those young fellows will please the ladies more than we old fogies would, hey, Sir Thomas?” said Mr. Osborne. “We’ll follow them by-and-by. It’s not every day that one meets one’s old friends, and has a glass of good wine together. ”

“ Sir Thomas raised his eyes towards Mrs. Osborne. “Best peach-fed ham I ever came across,” he said. “Wonderful man, wasn’t he, Mrs. Percy? Great artist, eh?”
Dora from opposite had heard the end of this.
“Claude, dear,” she said, “who is that nice fat man? I never saw anybody like his dinner so much. What an angel! It is funny to me, you know, coming back here and finding you of all people in that heavenly car, ready to drive me up from the station. ”