"Kioto is a place of great interest, as has been said already; and we have not been able to exhaust its sights, though we have worked very diligently. It is the most famous city in all Japan for its temples, as it contains altogether about three thousand of them. They are of all sizes and kinds, but the most of them are small and not worth the trouble of visiting. But, on the other hand, there are some magnificent ones, and a charming feature of the temples is the way they are situated. They are nearly all on hill-sides, and in the midst of groves and gardens where you may wander for hours in the shade; and whenever you feel weary you can be sure of finding a tea-house close by, where you may rest and refresh yourself on the fragrant tea of Japan. Children romp and play on the verandas of the temples without thought of harm, and run as they please through the edifices. Outside are the tea-gardens; and the people chatter and laugh as they move to and from the temple, without any of the solemnity of a congregation entering or leaving a church in America. At the hour of worship, the crowd kneels reverently, and pronounces in unison the prayers that are repeated by the priest, and when the prayers are ended, they return to their sport or their work as gayly as ever."Slightly."Our promenaders hurried into close order and with quick step and eager converse we moved toward the house. In raptures scintillant with their own beauty the three Harper girls inflated each item of the day's news and the morrow's outlook, and it was almost as pretty to see Miss Harper's keen black eyes and loving-tolerant smile go back and forth from Camille to Estelle, from Estelle to Ccile, and round again, as each maiden added some new extravagance to the glad vaunting of the last, and looked, for confirmation, to the gallant who toiled to keep her under her parasol. Suddenly the three girls broke into song with an adaptation of "Oh, carry me back" which substituted "Louisiana" for "Virginia," but whose absurd quaverings I will not betray in words to a generation that never knew the frantic times to which they belonged. I felt a shamefacedness for them even then, yet when I glanced behind, Miss Harper was singing with us in the most exalted earnest. We had nearly reached the field-gate, the big white one on the highway, and were noting that the dust of the General and his retinue had barely vanished from the southern stretch of the road, when one feminine voice said "What's that?" another exclaimed "See yonder!" and Miss Harper cried "Why, gentlemen, somebody's house is burning!"
ONE:Miss Charlotte's a-comin' down de la--ane!"Mrs Keeling felt a little strange: the magnificence of this great house rather overawed her, and she had to remind herself several times, as she dressed, that she was Lady Mayoress. There were quantities of tall liveried footmen standing about when she went down, but she remembered to put her nose in the air to about the angle at which Lady Inverbrooms nose was naturally levelled, and walked by them with an unseeing eye, as if{165} they were pieces of familiar furniture. She had soup on a silver plate, and was quite successful in avoiding what she would have called a scroopy noise made with her spoon as she fed herself off that unusual material. Then when Lord Inverbroom alluded casually to the great Reynolds over the chimney piece, she flattered herself that she made a very apposite remark when, after duly admiring it, she said, And who is the heir to all this beautiful property? for she was well aware that her hosts were childless. There were no guests in the house, except themselves, and though it would have been nice to let slip the names of illustrious people when alluding to this visit afterwards in Bracebridge, she felt glad at the time that there was no one else, for she was on the verge of feeling shy, which would never have done for a Lady Mayoress.
TWO:To show him how little I cared for any girl's age whose father preferred not to mention it, I reverted to his sister and brother. She was in New Orleans, he said, with her nieces, but might at any moment be sent into the Confederacy, being one of General Butler's "registered enemies." The brother was--"I think you boys are about even now," said the Doctor, "and may stop[Pg 39] for the present." They agreed to call it quits, and resumed their study of the map.
TWO:He meant the north side, opposite that one by which we had come from church. Here the landscape was much the same as there; wide fields on each side the fenced highway that still ran north and south, and woods for the sky-line everywhere. We chose an easy footpath along the northern fence of the grove, crossed the highway, and passed on a few steps alongside the woods-pasture fence. We talked as we went, he giving the kindest heed to my every word though I could see that, like any good soldier, he was scanning all the ground for its fighting values, and, not to be outdone, I, myself, pointed out, a short way up the public road, a fence-gap on the left, made by our camping soldiers two nights before. It was at another such gap, in the woods-pasture fence, that we turned back by a path through it which led into the wood and so again toward the highway and the house-grove. The evening General Austin sent me to Wiggins it was at this gap that I saw old Dismukes sitting cross-legged on the ground, playing poker; and here, now, I summoned the desperation to speak directly to my point.
TWO:After a few minutes we quitted the public way by an obscure path in the woods on our right. When we had followed this for two or three miles we turned to the left again and pressed as softly as we could into a low tangled ground where the air seemed stagnant and mosquitoes stung savagely. We wiped away the perspiration in streams. I pushed forward to Ferry's side and whispered my belief that at last we were to see rain.
She spoke to me of that, said Charles, and asked that you would send it to me, to forward to her. But I cant give you her address without her express permission.I find myself giving but a faint impression of the spirit in which Gholson spoke; it went away beyond a mere backbiting mood and became a temper so vindictive and so venomously purposeful that I was startled; his condition seemed so fearfully like that of the old paralytic when he whined "That's not our way.""No," she laughed, "and if I go back with you to Wiggins--to the little white cottage, you know, opposite the blacksmith's shop,--you'll give me what you've got for me, won't you?" She dropped her head to one side and a mocking-bird chuckle rippled in her throat."No, not so much," said Miss Harper, with a gleam of pride; and thereupon it was my amazement to hear Charlotte begin guardedly to sing:"Whose husband I have killed.... Ah, God!... Ah, my God! why was I chosen to do that?... And you think, Dick, it was not a question of time; that I did not ask, maybe a little too soon?"Frank corrected the mistake he had made, and said he was too much excited to remember all about the rules of grammar and etiquette. He had even forgotten that he was hungry; at any rate, he had lost his appetite, and hardly touched the juicy steak and steaming potatoes that were before him.
荣誉榜
THREE:That would be delightful of you, he said, but pray let us get rid of the dreadful word funeral. Birthday should it not be?
THREE:JAPANESE CLOISONN ON METAL. JAPANESE CLOISONN ON METAL.
