BY
author of
"liza of lambeth," "the making of a saint," "orientations"
London . . . . .
HUTCHINSON & CO.
Paternoster Row. 1901
"Rule, Britannia!
Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."
"Alfred": a Masque. By James Thomson.
"O Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O!"
"Sophonisba": a Tragedy. By the same Author.
To
MISS JULIA MAUGHAM
| I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, EPILOGUE |
Colonel Parsons sat by the window in the dining-room to catch the lastglimmer of the fading day, looking through his Standard to make surethat he had overlooked no part of it. Finally, with a little sigh, hefolded it up, and taking off his spectacles, put them in their case.
"Have you finished the paper?" asked his wife
"Yes, I think I've read it all. There's nothing in it."
He looked out of window at the well-kept drive that led to the house,and at the trim laurel bushes which separated the front garden from thevillage green. His eyes rested, with a happy smile, upon the triumphalarch which decorated the gate for the home-coming of his son, expectedthe next day from South Africa. Mrs. Parsons knitted diligently at asock for her husband, working with quick and clever fingers. He watchedthe rapid glint of the needles.
"You'll try your eyes if you go on much longer with this light, mydear."
"Oh, I don't require to see," replied his wife, with a gentle,affectionate smile. But she stopped, rather tired, and laying the sockon the table, smoothed it out with her hand.
"I shouldn't mind if you made it a bit higher in the leg than the lastpair."
"How high would you like it?"
She went to the window so that the Colonel might show the exact lengthhe desired; and when he had made up his mind, sat down again quietly onher chair by the fireside, with hands crossed on her lap, waitingplacidly for the maid to bring the lamp.
Mrs. Parsons was a tall woman of fifty-five, carrying herself with acertain diffidence, as though a little ashamed of her stature, greaterthan the Colonel's; it had seemed to her through life that those extrainches savoured, after a fashion, of disrespect. She knew it was herduty spiritually to look up to