Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox. A Romance онлайн

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The fussy little clock in the sitting room, after making many futile remarks, like a choking do-re-mi, landed fairly on do, and struck four! Then Miss Keith, saying casually that she must skim the milk at five, began to unfold her plan matrimonial.

She did not read Mrs. Dow’s letter to the doctor, but spoke from memory, with which an unexpected quality of imagination blended with dangerous frequency.

Alack a day! How often are the overworked three graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, pushed into the place of Truth, Experience, and Common Sense, and forced to bear responsibility not theirs!

When Miss Keith had finished, the good doctor naturally supposed that she had received a direct proposal from an old-time lover who, once rejected, had married some one else in pique. Also that the making of the sister’s home the meeting place was her own idea, born of her maidenly regard of the proprieties, which regard he well knew usually strengthens in inverse proportion to the need for it!

Finally, as he arose to go, she said, hovering tremulously between kitchen and sitting room, “Now that I know that you agree with me, I will ask one favour more. I have a letter that I would like to have posted in Gilead by your hand; these outdoor letter boxes sometimes leak, you know. Then I shall sleep content.”