Three hours later the stars still gleamed down through the balmy night above the long westward-galloping column of our brigade, that for those three hours had not slackened from the one unmitigated speed. The Federal regiment of whose plans Charlotte had apprised Ferry had been camped well to southward of this course, but in the day just past they had marched to the north, intending a raid around our right and into our rear. To-night they were resting in a wide natural meadow through the middle of which ran this road we were on. Around the southern edge of this inviting camp-ground by a considerable stream of water; the northern side was on rising ground and skirted by woods, and in these woods as day began to break stood our brigade, its presence utterly unsuspected in all that beautiful meadow whitened over with lane upon lane of the tents of the regiment of Federal cavalry, whose pickets we had already silently surprised and captured. Now, as warily as quails, we moved along an unused, woodcutters' road and began to trot up a gentle slope beyond whose crest the forest sank to the meadow. We were within a few yards of this crest, when a small mounted patrol came up from the other side, stood an instant profiled against the sky, bent low, gazed, wheeled and vanished.
Still I frowned. "How does it come that she's here, anyhow?"Unluckily she retorted with some playful parry that just lacked the saving quality of true resentment. How I rejoined would be small profit to tell. I had a fearful sense of falling; first like a wounded squirrel, dropping in fierce amazement, catching, holding on for a panting moment, then dropping, catching and dropping again, down from the top of the great tree where I had so lately sat scolding all the forest; and then, later, with an appalling passivity. And at every fresh exchange of words, while she laughed and fended, and fended and laughed, along with this passivity came a yet more appalling perversity; a passivity and perversity as of delirium, and as horrid to her as to me, though I little thought so then.Now Mrs Keeling had a very high opinion of her powers of tact and intuition. Here was a situation that promised to drive the final nail into the cheap and flimsy coffin of Mrs Fysons hopes. Mr Silverdale had come to tea all alone with Alice, and here was Alice writing him a note that required an answer not half an hour afterwards. Her intuition instantly told her that Mr Silverdale had made a proposal of marriage to Alice, and that Alice had written to him saying that he must allow her a little time to think it over. (Why Alice should not have said that, or why Alice should not have instantly accepted him, her intuition did not tell her.) But it was certain that no other grouping of surmises would fit the facts. Then her intuition having done its work, though bursting with curiosity she summoned her tact to her aid, and began to talk about the spiders web again. She was determined not to pry into her daughters heart, but wait for her daughter to open the door of it herself. Alice (and this only served to confirm Mrs Keelings conjectures) responded instantly to this tactful treatment, and began to talk so excitedly about the spiders web, and the plush monkey, and their journey to Brighton next day, that Mrs Keeling almost began to be afraid that she was feverish again. But presently this volubility died down, and she{220} sat, so Mrs Keeling rightly conjectured, listening for something. Once she was certain that she heard steps in the next room, and went to see if her father had come in: once she was almost sure that the telephone bell had rung, and wondered who it could be disturbing them at their chat over the fire. Then, without doubt, the telephone bell did ring, and on this occasion she pretended she had not heard it, but hurriedly left the room on the pretext of taking her tonic. She left the door open, and Mrs Keeling could distinctly hear her asking her tonic apparently who it was, though well aware that it was strychnine.... Then after a pause she heard her thanking her tonic ever ever so much, and she came back looking as if it had done her a great deal of good already.
ONE:The Japanese lacquer of the present time is not so highly prized as that of the last or the previous century. It is not so well made, partly for the reason that the workmen have lost their skill in the art, and partly because labor is much more expensive now than formerly. The prices obtained for some of the specimens of this kind of work have been very high, but they are not enough to meet the advance that has been made in wages in the past few years. The manufacturers are anxious to turn their money as rapidly as possible, and consequently they do not allow their productions to dry thoroughly. To be properly prepared, a piece of lacquer should dry very slowly; and it used to be said that the best lacquer was dried under water, so that the process should not be too rapid. The article, whatever it may be, is first shaped from wood or papier-mach, and then covered with successive coatings of varnish or lacquer; this is made from the gum of a tree, or, rather, from the juice, and it is said to have the peculiar property of turning black from exposure to the air, though it is of a milky whiteness when it exudes from the tree. It can be made to assume various colors by the addition of pigments; and while it is in a fresh condition coatings of gold-leaf are laid on in such a way as to form the figures that the artist has designed. Every coating must be dried before the next is laid on; and the more elaborate and costly the work, the more numerous are the coatings. Sometimes[Pg 251] there may be a dozen or more of them, and pieces are in existence that are said to have received no less than fifty applications of lacquer. A box may thus require several years for its completion, as the drying process should never be hastened, lest the lacquer crack and peel when exposed to the air, and especially to heat. Good lacquer can be put into hot water without the least injury; but this is not the case with the ordinary article.
TWO:I said I wished mine were.BLOWING BUBBLES. BLOWING BUBBLES.
TWO:Ferry made a quick gesture for her to shoot low, but she solemnly shook her head and fired through the top of the uppermost panel, and the assault came. "If I should name half the temples and public places we have seen I should make you wish, perhaps, that I had not written at all, as the list alone would be tedious, and I could no more give you an idea of the peculiar beauty and attractions of each than I could describe the perfume of each flower in a bouquet from the hands of the florist. One temple had a large cemetery attached to it, and we walked around looking at the inscriptions in a language which we could not read, and studying symbols we could not understand. The temple stands in a grove, as do nearly all the temples of Kioto, and the place reminded us very much of some of our burial-places at home.
TWO:"The theatre was a small one, according to our notions, but it was well ventilated, which is not always the case in America. The man that sold the tickets was very polite, and so was the one who took them at the door. The latter called an usher, who showed us to our box, and brought the chairs for us; and then he brought a programme, but we couldn't read a word of it, as it was all in Japanese. We cared more about looking at the people than trying to read something that we couldn't read at all; and so I folded up the programme and put it into my pocket.Then shall I go down to your house now, and get on with my business? she said.
THREE:"Was there a loud noise?" asked Gregg.All really important questions in life came under the heading of Time and Space, thought of in capital letters. Recently, he had struggled through a difficult book, in which the author used these expressions a great many times, although in a sense difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, it suddenly became obvious, in a small way, exactly what the chap had been driving at.
