FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>  
at Christ Church, and we made a show of writing to one another, and didn't, and always had a hearty mutual goodwill; and though we did not quite burst into tears on parting, were yet quite happy when occasion threw us together, and so almost lost sight of each other. I heard lately that Berry was married, and am rather ashamed to say, that I was not so curious as even to ask the maiden name of his lady. Last summer I was at Paris, and had gone over to Versailles to meet a party, one of which was a young lady to whom I was tenderly--But, never mind. The day was rainy, and the party did not keep its appointment; and after yawning through the interminable Palace picture-galleries, and then making an attempt to smoke a cigar in the Palace garden--for which crime I was nearly run through the body by a rascally sentinel--I was driven, perforce, into the great bleak lonely place before the Palace, with its roads branching off to all the towns in the world, which Louis and Napoleon once intended to conquer, and there enjoyed my favourite pursuit at leisure, and was meditating whether I should go back to "Vefour's" for dinner, or patronise my friend M. Duboux of the "Hotel des Reservoirs" who gives not only a good dinner, but as dear a one as heart can desire. I was, I say, meditating these things, when a carriage passed by. It was a smart low calash, with a pair of bay horses and a postilion in a drab jacket that twinkled with innumerable buttons, and I was too much occupied in admiring the build of the machine, and the extreme tightness of the fellow's inexpressibles, to look at the personages within the carriage, when the gentleman roared out "Fitz!" and the postilion pulled up, and the lady gave a shrill scream, and a little black-muzzled spaniel began barking and yelling with all his might, and a man with moustaches jumped out of the vehicle, and began shaking me by the hand. "Drive home, John," said the gentleman: "I'll be with you, my love, in an instant--it's an old friend. Fitz, let me present you to Mrs. Berry." The lady made an exceedingly gentle inclination of her black-velvet bonnet, and said, "Pray, my love, remember that it is just dinner-time. However, never mind ME." And with another slight toss and a nod to the postilion, that individual's white leather breeches began to jump up and down again in the saddle, and the carriage disappeared, leaving me shaking my old friend Berry by the hand. He had long q
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142  
143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   >>  



Top keywords:
carriage
 

dinner

 

friend

 

Palace

 

postilion

 
gentleman
 
meditating
 

shaking

 
occupied
 

admiring


disappeared

 

twinkled

 
innumerable
 

buttons

 
saddle
 

tightness

 
fellow
 
inexpressibles
 

extreme

 

personages


jacket

 

machine

 

horses

 

desire

 

things

 

passed

 

leaving

 

calash

 

breeches

 

remember


jumped

 
vehicle
 

gentle

 

exceedingly

 

present

 
instant
 

inclination

 
bonnet
 

velvet

 
However

scream
 

muzzled

 
shrill
 
leather
 

pulled

 

individual

 
spaniel
 

moustaches

 
slight
 

yelling