Whippoorwill

“ Whipple was as handsome as her husband was plain. She was a decided brunette, with black hair and eyes, sweet-tempered and sympathetic, yet not wanting in firmness. She must have been of very vigorous, physical habit, for, meeting a friend in the street, she would grasp her warmly by the hand and detain her in conversation longer than the sharp Boston east wind rendered agreeable to one of a chilly disposition. It was Mrs. Whipple, if I remember aright, who once lay in a stupor during an attack of smallpox. ”

“ When at last Westover confessed that he had carried his picture of Cynthia as far as he could, Whitwell did his best to hide his disappointment. "Well, sir," he said, tolerantly and even cheeringly, "I presume we're every one of us a different person to whoever looks at us. They say that no two men see the same star." ”

“ There should have been really no human habitation visible except a wigwam in the shelter of the pines, here and there; and when he saw Whitwell making his way up the hill-side road, Westover felt that if there must be any human presence it should be some savage clad in skins, instead of the philosopher in his rubber boots and his clothing-store ulster. He preferred the small, wiry shape of Jombateeste, in his blue woollen cap and his Canadian footgear, as he ran round the corner of the house toward the barn, and left the breath of his pipe in the fine air behind him. ”

“ In her own room Miss Wycliffe stood before her mirror, looking now at the white reflection of her face, and now at the recovered ring which she had tossed upon the bureau, while in her splendid eyes blazed the light of a great and implacable anger. For the man who was at that moment passing by in the street, who had taken her gift and bestowed it upon a servant, had been her husband for more than two years. ”

“ But he was consoled by the lunch which he had with Westover at a restaurant where it was served in courses. "I presume this is what Jeff's goin' to give 'em at Lion's Head when he gits it goin' again."
"How is it he's in Florence?" it occurred to Westover to ask. "I thought he was going to Nice for the winter."
"I don't know. That's the address he give in his last letter," said Whitwell. "I'll be glad when I've done with him for good and all. He's all kinds of a devil." ”

“ I CONFESS that I still look back upon the Whitwell affair with a sense of chagrin, if not of humiliation, tempered with a feeling of amusement, which, thank Heaven, I can still get out of life. When I cease to see the humour of a situation, or lose my appreciation of the ironic, it will be time for me to close the shutters. I shall have no business in life. There was a ludicrous aspect to the Whitwell affair. ”

“ Whitwell stopped midway in his suggestion, with an inquiring eye on the painter, who asked: "You think he's left off being the old Jeff?"
"Well, sir, you got me there," the philosopher confessed. "I didn't see anything to the contrary, but come to think of it—"
"Why couldn't the broken shaft be his unfulfilled destiny on the old lines? What reason is there to believe he isn't what he's always been?"
"Well, come to think of it—"
"People don't change in a day, or a year," Westover went on, "or two or three years, even. Sometimes I doubt if they ever change." ”

“ From what Miss Woppit implied rather than said, Mary took it that Miss Woppit esteemed Mr. Hoover highly as a gentleman and as a friend—that she perhaps valued his friendship more than she did that of any other man in the world, always excepting her brother Jim, of course. ”

“ I'm much obliged to you, though, Mr.—”
“Westover,” the painter suggested. “But the boy isn't so bad all the time.”
“Couldn't be,” said Whitwell, with a cackle of humorous enjoyment. “He has his spells of bein' decent, and he's pootty smart, too. But when the other spell ketches him it's like as if the devil got a-hold of him, as I said in the first place. I lost my wife here two-three years along back, and that little girl you see him tormentin', she's a regular little mother to her brother; and whenever Jeff Durgin sees her with him, seems as if the Old Scratch got into him. ”

“ There were individuals who called the old man a deep-dyed hypocrite, for they held that no really self-sacrificing toiler in the Lord's vineyard could have amassed the great wealth old Whipple was known to possess. But this was disputed by all the men in his employment, at least, for they were ready to attest that Whipple had often held over important business matters till the case of some suffering applicant could be investigated and relief supplied. ”

“ The mind of William Whewell, by natural, impetuous action, invades all territories of knowledge, and grasps at a dominion forbidden by the term allotted to human life: but that mind, clearly and beyond all doubt, has power to grapple and to deal effectually with all that it has time to apprehend and seize. It is not to be wondered, that the temper of so ardent a spirit should be hasty: that its nature is frank, generous, and noble. ”

“ Whippleton's party, and that the two Miss Lords were on board of his boat. I saw her when she came in here, and he was alone."
"The ladies were in the cabin, I suppose."
"Mr. Whippleton is alone: he does not wish for any company to-day."
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, evidently suspecting that I was wiser than I ought to be.
"Miss Collingsby is alone on board of the Marian. I am afraid she will be uneasy if you remain here any longer. If you are engaged to her, she must be very anxious about you."
"Don't be ugly and disagreeable, Phil. You are a good fellow. ”

“ Whitwell slapped his leg. Westover saw that he had on long India-rubber boots, which came up to his knees, and he gave a wayward thought to the misery they would be on an August day to another man; but Whitwell was probably insensible to any discomfort from them. "When a man's mindin' his own business any government's good, I guess. ”

“ I said. "Let your man get water; there is a pool yonder."
The housecarl started toward it, but as he passed one of the helpless horses, he turned to that and brought me a horn from the saddlebags. It had wine in it, and that was better. The old thane tried to get some of it into the lips of the lady, and succeeded while I rubbed her hands.
And all the while Werbode had his eyes on Erling, whose gaunt form was clear against the sky as he sat still on his horse and watched the heath for the trolls to return on us. Behind him the two hounds sat, careless. ”

“ Now, when Astulf grew old and had boys and girls of his own, they used to clamber on his knee in the twilight and ask for a story, and oh! how they wished for the Hippogrif. Sometimes the old knight said that the Hippogrif was dead, but I have known people to shut their eyes and climb on his back, and cling to his mane, and go flying over the ocean and the hills clear through to the other end of the world. For Hippogrif is only a name for Fancy, and the Valley of Lost Lumber and the River of Oblivion and the Temple of Immortality exist for every one of us. ”

“ When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recal or I extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one was near me when I went in and went home.
Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint. ”

“ This atmosphere of harmony and understanding remained unbroken until they stood before her house; but now an inexplicable change occurred. She suddenly held out her hand with a gesture that seemed to him frankly impatient, as if she were anxious to be gone. "And my gloves," she said. "I think I gave them to you."
He produced them reluctantly. "I had hoped you would forget them, Miss Wycliffe."
"One does n't easily forget a new pair of gloves," she answered in a tone cruelly matter-of-fact, as if she would show deliberately her unconcern. ”

“ A little later he portrayed the character of Patricia Whipple in terms that would have incensed her but that moved Wilbur to little but mild interest.
"You never know when you got your thumb on that kid," he said. "She's the shifty one, all right. Talk along to you sweet as honey, but all the time she's watching for some chance to throw the harpoon into you. Venomous—regular vixen. No sense of humour—laughs at almost anything a fellow says or does. ”

“ Parr."
"Oh, I'm not vain of my knowledge of books," she assured him. "Miss Wycliffe is my literary conscience. I do miss her so much! When she 's away, I 'm only half a person, I declare; and when she 's here, I 'm just nobody at all, because I lose myself in her."
"You make the friendships of men pale into insignificance," he remarked jestingly, yet not without a new respect, inspired by this glimpse of her capacity for loyalty to one who overshadowed her. ”

“ If I continued to cover up Mr. Whippleton's error, I became a party to it. He was a bad man, and I could not fail to see my duty. I must inform Mr. Collingsby of what I had discovered. But though my duty was clear, my inclination rebelled. The junior partner had been kind and considerate; the senior, lofty and distant. It seemed almost like betraying my friend. While I was still considering the matter, Mr. Whippleton came in. I had not reached any conclusion, except that I would not be a party to the fraud by concealing it.
"Phil, do you know where Mr. Collingsby lives?" ”

“ Moreover, every hand, he will have an entirely different purpose; sometimes to win the game; sometimes to save it, and with that [36] end in view, will lay himself out to make tricks varying from three to eleven—below and above that number, since the invention of short Whist, he has no need to trouble himself—and the moral most people would draw, would be that in that portentous number of hands, some of them would require very different treatment from others ”

“ Jackson sat with closed eyes and his head fallen back; Whitwell stared at the painter, with open mouth; the little Canuck began to walk up and down impatiently; Westover felt a reproach, almost an abhorrence, in all of them.
Whitwell asked: "Why, don't you think there's any proof of it?"
"Proof? Oh Yes. There's testimony enough to carry conviction to the stubbornest mind on any other point. But it's very strange about all that. It doesn't convince anybody but the witnesses. If a man tells me he's seen a disembodied spirit, I can't believe him. ”

“ No robber but himself does much flourishing while he's around. There's some say the only ones he picks on is the other crooks. Others say different. I don't know. Well, a couple of days later Lew Lauriston does a fade-away. He didn't even stop to tell us whether the Whisperer had paid him a visit or not, but we just took it for granted.
“If you want to try your hand, Pat, why, it ain't hard to find Eagles, and in Eagles it ain't hard to find Goggles.”
But the arrows of this sarcasm flew harmless over the head of Patricia, for she had fallen into a brown study. ”

“ Westover?"
Westover confirmed in general Jeff's report of the cleanliness of Paris.
"And beautiful! You don't know what a good-looking town is till you strike Paris. And they're proud of it, too. Every man acts as if he owned it. They've had the statue of Alsace in that Place de la Concorde of yours, Mr. Whitwell, where they had the guillotine all draped in black ever since the war with Germany; and they mean to have her back, some day."
"Great country, Jombateeste!" Whitwell shouted to the Canuck. ”

“ Westover had to break the silence that followed, and he found himself defending Jeff, though somehow not for Jeff's sake. He urged that if he had the strong will they both recognized in him, he would never commit the errors of a weak man, which were usually the basest.
"How do you know that a strong-willed man a'n't a weak one?" Whitwell astonished him by asking. "A'n't what we call a strong will just a kind of a bull-dog clinch that the dog himself can't unloose? I take it a man that has a good will is a strong man. ”

“ Patricia Whipple now came to their table with something like a dance step, though the music was stilled. She had been away from Newbern for two years.
"Europe and Washington," she hurriedly explained as Wilbur held a chair for her, "and glad to get back—but I'm off again. Nurse! Begin the course next week in New York—learning
how to soothe the bed of pain. I know I'm a
rattlepate, but that's what I'm going to do. All of us mad about the war."
Wilbur studied her as he had studied Merle. She was in better condition, he thought. ”

“ If I took those lands from your hand, my King, needs must that I gave up all the life with you. Sooner would I let the land go and bide with you. Yet if I must needs take them, be it as you will."
"It is a great thing that you speak so lightly of giving up," he answered gravely; "Erpwald, the heathen, was willing to risk his life for those lands, and he held them dear. And a captain of the king's house-carles will always look to be rewarded for service with lands. In time you will seek the same."
"That time has not yet come to me, King Ina." ”

“ Woffington, “and the day after the tragedy is played, you will be as famous as Mr. Garrick. 'T is the simplest thing in the world.”
“You have so unnerved me, sir, that I vow I have no head for my lines,” said Miss Hoppner. ”