FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   >>  
w his huge frame into an arm-chair. "Come, habeas corpus, habeas corpus. Now, if we had Alphonse here," he continued, "he could repeat the whole writ in Latin. Habeas corpus, habeas corpus," muttered the puzzled savage, fumbling in his brains for the context, "habeas corpus, habeas corpus;--" then, relinquishing the vain search, and addressing himself to the woman, at the same time elevating his voice, he vociferated: "Hillo, come, lady sheriff, bring up the body of your prisoner, I say;" when, as if in obedience to the call of a magician, a door opened, and from an inner room, with face flushed, brow dark and fretted with indignation, lips pouting, breast heaving, and her eyes overflowing with tears, in bounded his sister, Seraphine Duchatel, exclaiming: "And is this the creature that has stood between me and Claude? and brought here, too, to flout me to my face! I'll not endure it;" and she burst into a fresh torrent of tears. "Who has stood between you, girl?" enquired the brother, half teasingly, half tenderly: "if there be a stump between here and Mainville that hinders you from driving your carriage thither, tell me, and we'll pull it up as quickly as Doctor Lanctot would pull you a tooth out." "You have done well, indeed," continued the angry girl, weeping, and not minding his clumsy badinage, "you have done well indeed, to bring her here to answer me, to scorn me, to defy me, to parade herself before me, to stand in my presence as proud as any peacock,--only not half so beautiful." "Fine feathers make fine birds, Phin," drily retorted her brother. "She is not fine, and if she be, she shall be plucked of her finery;" exclaimed the sister: "I'll tear her eyes out; what business has she to look at _me_, and speak so insolently? I'll have her face flayed; her hair shall be plucked up by the roots;" and she stamped with her little foot. "We'll have her scalped, girl!" condoled her brother. "Yes, this is the way you always think to manage me; by laughing at me," cried the spoiled child, in renewed agony of tears. "Why, what is the matter?" demanded the Seigneur, wondering, and startled by these threatening allusions: "What is the meaning of all this, Samson?" "Oh," answered the latter, striving to perpetrate a pun, "Only that we have brought Phin a handmaiden, and she finds her handsomer than is agreeable;--but there is many a servant comelier than the mistress." "Let me behold this Paragon," sai
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83  
84   >>  



Top keywords:

corpus

 

habeas

 

brother

 

plucked

 

brought

 
sister
 

continued

 

flayed

 

business

 
exclaimed

insolently

 
finery
 

parade

 

clumsy

 

badinage

 

answer

 

presence

 

feathers

 

beautiful

 

peacock


retorted

 

striving

 

perpetrate

 

answered

 

allusions

 

meaning

 

Samson

 

handmaiden

 

mistress

 

behold


Paragon

 
comelier
 

servant

 

handsomer

 

agreeable

 
threatening
 

condoled

 

scalped

 

stamped

 

minding


manage

 

laughing

 

demanded

 

matter

 

Seigneur

 

wondering

 
startled
 

spoiled

 

renewed

 

Lanctot