Читать книгу The Primrose Path: A Chapter in the Annals of the Kingdom of Fife онлайн

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By-and-by Mrs. Glen came strolling out from the house, with that assumed air of ease and leisure which is always so comically transparent. She meant to assume that she had nothing to do, and was taking a walk for pleasure, which was about as unlikely a thing as could have happened, almost as unlikely as pure interest in Rob’s work, which was her real motive. She wanted to see what he had done, whether he had taken that bonniest view, how he was getting on with it, and if it was a thing which could, by any possibility, dazzle and delight a young lady who was an heiress. Assuredly she had not sent out her son to dream over the landscape, to do anything but draw it there and then without delay, as if he had been sent to plough a field. She came up to him, elaborately unoccupied and at her ease, yet explanatory.

“I’ve just come out to look about me,” she said, with fictitious jauntiness. “So you’re at it again! Eh, laddie, what a waste o’ time and good paper, no to speak of thae colors that cost money! And how far are you on by this time? are you near done?”