Thanet

“ Some light would appear to be thrown upon their intimacy in a letter from William Windham, dated ‘Paris, 15 Sept. 1791:’ Thanet has arrived here ‘with a Hungarian lady whom as a brilliant achievement he carried off from her husband at Vienna’ (Diary, ed. Baring, 1866, p. 237) .
Thanet took no prominent part in politics, but generally supported the Duke of Bedford and the opposition to Pitt. In May 1798 he was present with Fox, Sheridan, Erskine, and other whig sympathisers at the trial of Arthur O'Connor [q. v.] ”

“ Ld. Thanet quitted his captivity on Monday last; he is delighted at regaining his freedom, but a little annoyed at walking the streets where he is shown as a sight, ‘There he goes: aye, that is him.’ He says all rooms appear immense, his eye having been so long accustomed to the straitened little apartment he occupied. Madame Bonawitz latterly shared his confinement: she is reckoned clever, she writes English verses.
Our planet must have got out of its orbit and flown off further from the sun, as the cold is very remarkable. ”

“ Here we are well within the Isle of Thanet, whose name, as generally is the case, is of uncertain origin. "Thanatos," the "Isle of Death," suggested some commentator in the bygone years, but he did not bolster up his derivation by telling us in what way it was so deadly. Perhaps in the wrecks of its coast. In other respects, Thanet is the Isle of Good Health, of rude, hungry, boisterous health; and in summer the Isle of Cockneys. Does it not contain Ramsgate—"rollicking Ramsgate",—and Margate the merry, whose name—I am sorry—always reminds me of margarine? ”

“ Thanet—that's a rich lady who lives close by, and is a sort of fairy godmother to us girls—has a great notion about practical education. It was she who got up the Harnessing Class and the Model Kitchen. ”

“ The sentence was excessively severe, if not unjust, for Thanet certainly had no deliberate intention of aiding O'Connor's rescue. After his release the earl lived quietly at Hothfield, and became a popular agriculturist, regularly visiting the stock market at Ash ford, and conversing with the graziers. ”

“ The white gown, which was her constant wear in the sick-room, defined her figure clearly against a clump of Japan plum-trees. Their purplish red foliage rustled; and an unseen fountain beyond made a delicate tinkle of water splashing a marble basin. Her face was hidden; only the moonlight gently drew the oval of her cheek. She was standing still, except that one foot was groping back and forth as if trying to find something. ”

“ Thanet. the Thanet abutteth, which Ptolomie calleth Toliapis, other Athanatos, bicause serpents are supposed not to liue in the same, howbeit sith it is not enuironed with the sea, it is not to be dealt withall as an Iland in this place, albeit I will not let to borow of my determination, and describe it as I go, bicause it is so fruitfull. Beda noteth it in times past to haue conteined 600. families, which are all one with Hidelands, *Ploughlands, Carrucates, or Temewares. ”

“ Rather grimly the soldier’s eyes were noting marble wainscoting and tiled floors, and contrasting this academic environment with his own at West Point. A caustic comment rose to his lips, but it was not uttered, for he heard the sharp bark of a pistol, followed by a thud, and a crackle as of breaking glass.
“Do you fellows amuse yourselves shooting up [2] the dormitory?” said he. The boy halted; he had gone white.
“It came from Mercer’s room!” he cried, and ran across the corridor to a door with the usual labeling of two visiting cards. ”

“ Not seeming to recognize any chill in his reception, the young stranger approached the stove. No one moved to admit him to the inner circle; this, also, he did not seem to observe. "This whole country looks as if you had been having hard times," he continued. His voice had full, rich, magnetic notes, but its unfamiliar intonations jarred on his hearers; they knew them to belong to the East, and they hated the East. ”

“ The mug with the broken handle had sped against the weather-boarding.
“Now what was that?” cried Ike, jumping up. Before he was on his feet a broken soap-dish had followed the mug. Up flew the sash, and Ike was out of the window. “What are you doing that for? What do you mean by that?” he yelled, to which the dark and silent house opposite naturally made no reply. ”

“ CASA FUERTE
Winter would have said that he was too old a man to stay awake all night, when he had a normal temperature; yet he saw the stars come out and the stars fade on that fateful April night. He entered his room at the hour when midnight brushes the pale skirts of dawn and misguided cocks are vociferating their existence to an indifferent world. Before he came there had been a long council with Mercer and his aunt. ”

“ Which isn’t such a plain proposition in ’Frisco as in Massachusetts! But I [351] reckon we can tackle it! And then—then, my darling, I shall dare be happy!”
He found himself leaning on his window-sill and staring like a boy on the landscape, lost in the lovely hallucinations of moonlight. It was no scene that he knew, it was a vision of old Spain; and by and by from yonder turret the princess, with violets in her loosened hair and her soft cheek like satin and snow, would lean and look. ”

“ One can’t weed until there is a crop of information, you know.”
“True,” murmured Aunt Rebecca, nodding her head thoughtfully. “Well, did anything else happen?”
“The secretary posted a lot of letters in the shute. They are all smoking now. Yes—” he was on his feet and at the door in almost a single motion. There had been just the slightest tattoo on the panel. When the door was opened the colonel could hear the rattle of the elevator. He was too late to catch it, but he could see the inmates. Three gentlemen stood in the car. One was Keatcham, the other two had their backs to Winter. ”

“ Her skin was fine and clear, and her brown hair very soft. Her gray eyes were alight with interest as she watched the finishing touches given the table, which was spread with a glossy white cloth, and had a bowl of June roses in the centre. Mrs. Armstrong, in a new dimity gown and white apron, was placing a great platter of golden sponge-cake on the board. She looked up and saw Pauline. The girl could invent no better excuse for her scrutiny (which had such an air of prying) than to drop her head as if in faintness—an excuse, indeed, suggested by her own feelings. ”

“ His friend was eying him critically, with queer little grunts, according to his fashion. "You're not fit to walk," he grumbled. "Why will young folks wear shoes that don't fit! Say, you take Lady Jean home while I go over to the club-house with the major. And keep the car if you don't find me. I'll go back with Standish. And—I don't know but you better take her 'round the head of the island and show her that motor mowing-machine—lawn-mower, you know; I want her to see it."
He grinned as the young people obeyed him with grateful docility, speeding away in his electric runabout ”

“ Henriette jeered after a while. “Foster seems to me only one degree less maudlin and commonplace. He makes me think of tuberoses!” Pauline laughed and went to the window. The white porcupine of electric light at the corner threw out long spikes of radiance athwart the narrow sidewalk, and a man’s shadow dipped into the lighted space. The man was leaning his arms on the fence. “Foolish fellow!” Pauline laughed softly to herself. ”

“ He pressed on the round white knob, and what he had half expected happened: a segment of the column swung on inner hinges, disclosing the hollow [158] center of the engaged columns on either side. He looked down. Nothing but darkness was visible, but while he stood, tensely holding his breath, his abnormally sensitive auricular nerve caught distinctly the staccato breath of that kind of sigh which is like a groan, and a voice said more wearily than angrily: “Oh, damn it all!” ”

“ Yes, shut the door; we are for art’s sake only, not for the applause of the cold world in the car.”
Afterward, when he was angry over his own folly, his own blind, dogged, trustfulness against all the odds of evidence, Rupert Winter laid his weakness to that hour; to a woman’s sweet, untrained, tender voice singing the simple melodies of his youth. ”

“ Once he had fancied himself able to despise men who yielded their public ideals to any stress of self-interest. Here, to save his own affections, he was meditating how to introduce this social scourge into pure, honest homes. He made short work of her plea to him that she meant to live a decent life; he knew the woman was callous as an alligator.
"It is not our business," said the preacher's mild, solemn tones, "to foresee consequences. They rest with God. Our business is to do His will."
Sir Cedric bowed his head. ”

“ To counterbalance, she knew more than anyone alive what a good son and brother Horatio had always been. But she could not restrain a smile at the picture of the partnership.
“Precisely, you see yourself,” said Armorer. “Meg”—hesitating—“you don't suppose it would be any use to offer Esther a cool hundred thousand to promise to bounce this young fellow?”
“Horatio, NO!” cried Mrs. Ellis, tossing her pretty gray head indignantly; “you'd insult her!”
“Take it the same way, eh? Well, perhaps; Essie has high-toned notions. That's all right, it is the thing for women. Mother had them too. ”

“ Keatcham’s illness or even that he was in the house. “You know,” he said, “that when these great financiers sneeze, the stock-market shakes; so absolute secrecy, please, my dear madam.” Don’t mention it to a soul, will you? Of course I haven’t seen the invalid; but I’ve seen his valet, who is very English; and I have seen his nurse. Who do you suppose she is? Janet Smith! Yes; you know she has been a trained nurse. Was there ever a more artful creature! But Mr. K. is none of my affairs; he will have to save himself or be lost. Once she is his wife we are safe from that designing woman. ”

“ Pauline gave the message, but she felt so guilty because of this last courtesy that she gave it without reproach, even though her only good brush disclosed a pitiful crack.
“Well, you know why I did it,” said Henriette, coolly; “and does the man suppose his playing isn’t obnoxious any hour of the day as well as night? But let us hope they will be quiet awhile. Paula, have you any money? We ought to go over those numbers for the concert beforehand, and we must get Verdi’s Requiem. Mysie has some, but she wants it to buy curtains.”
“I’m sorry, sister Etty, but I haven’t a cent.” ”

“ She cared for this scoundrel of an Atkins who had first betrayed his employer and then tried to murder him. Very likely they had been half engaged down there in Virginia; and he had crawled out of his engagement; it would be quite like the cur! Later he found that just such a distinguished, charming woman, who had family and friends, was what he wanted; it would be easy enough for him to warm up his old passion, curse him! Then, he had met her and run in a bunch of plausible lies that had convinced her that he had been a regular angel in plain clothes ”

“ She was co-guardian with him of the boy, who, he had no doubt, had been spirited away by Mercer and his accomplice; and hadn’t she a right to any information on the matter in his possession?
[94] Reluctantly he admitted that she did have such a right; and, he admitted further, being a man who never cheated at solitaire, that his object in keeping the talk of the two men from her had not been so much the desire to guard her nerves (which he knew perfectly well were of a robuster fiber than those of most women twenty or forty years younger than she) ”

“ All she could do for them would be to drift forever out of their lives. She opened the drawer, and took a vial from a secret corner. “It is only a little faintness and numbness, and then it is all over,” she thought, as she slipped the vial into the chatelaine bag at her [153] waist. In a sudden gust of courage she took it out again; but that instinctive trusting to hope to the last, which urges the most desperate of us on delay, held her hand. She put back the vial, and, without a final glance, went down the stairs. ”

“ Now, how would Rick take it? What kind of a figure would he cut in his son's fancy? How does it affect a son to be able to despise his father? One ignominious vision after another surged over his mind like waves of acid that corrode as they pass.
Nevertheless, so accustomed was the politician to carry on his mental processes under cover, that all this while he was opening his telegrams with the same placid mask of a face that Sir Cedric's world knew. There he sat, to all appearance, a handsome, scrupulously dressed, elderly man, the least bit in the world stern of aspect ”

“ I guess it's all right. Only, you know captain and Danvers; I wish you'd write back to the old town and tell the committee I done my duty. I can't be a credit to the company, but I done my duty, though I expect there's folks in town may think I was malingering."
"Stop talking!" commanded the doctor. "Did you know the women are coming to-morrow; you are to have a nurse of your own here?"
"Time," said Spruce; "if my town had its way they'd been here long ago. Ever been in my town, Major?"
"No. Good-by, Spruce; keep quiet."
"It's the bulliest town in the country, and the prettiest. ”

“ The man who roused him was an acquaintance, and he stood smiling in the attitude of a man about to ask a favor, while the expectant half-smile of the lady on his arm hinted at the nature of the favor. Would Mr. Forrest be so kind?—there seemed to be no more seats. Before Mr. Forrest could be kind Tim had yielded his own chair and was off, wriggling among the crowd in search of another place.
“Smart boy, that youngster of yours,” said the man; “he'll make his way in the world, he can push. Well, Miss Alma, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Forrest. ”