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The Shuttle Chapter 27 - Life · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER XXVII. LIFE Mount Dunstan, walking through the park next
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: morning on his way to the vicarage just after post-time,
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  Speaker 1: met Mr. Penzance himself coming to make an equally early
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: call at the mount. Each of them had a letter
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: in his hand, and each met the other's glance with
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  Speaker 1: a smile.' G. Selden,' Mount Dunstan said.' And yours?'' G.
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  Speaker 1: Selden also,' answered the vicar. Poor young fellow, what ill luck!
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: And yet is it ill luck, he says not. He
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  Speaker 1: tells me it is not, said Mount Dunstan, and I
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  Speaker 1: agree with him. Mr. Penzance read his letter aloud. Dear Sir,
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  Speaker 1: this is to notify you that owing to my bite
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  Speaker 1: going back on me when going downhill, I met with
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  Speaker 1: an accident in Stornham Park. Was cut about the head
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  Speaker 1: and leg broken. Little Willie being far from home and mother,
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  Speaker 1: you can see what sort of a fix he'd have
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  Speaker 1: been in, if it hadn't have been for the kindness
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  Speaker 1: of Reuben S. Vanderpool's daughters, Miss Bettina and her sister
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Lady Anstruthers. The way they've had me taken care of
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  Speaker 1: has been great. I've been under a nurse and doctor,
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  Speaker 1: same as if I was Albert Edward with Appendictius. I
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  Speaker 1: apologise if that's not spelt right. Dear sir, this is
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  Speaker 1: to say that I asked Miss Vanderpool if I should
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  Speaker 1: be butting in too much if I dropped a line
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  Speaker 1: to ask if you was fair the time to call
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  Speaker 1: and see me. It would be considered a favour and
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  Speaker 1: appreciated by G. Selden, Delcoff Typewriter Company, Broadway. P.S. Have
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  Speaker 1: already sold three Delcoffs to Miss Vanderpool.'' Upon my word,' Mr.
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  Speaker 1: Penzance commented, and his amiable fervour quite glowed.' I like
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  Speaker 1: that queer young fellow. I like him. He doesn't wish
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  Speaker 1: to butt in too much. Now there is rudimentary delicacy
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  Speaker 1: in that. And what a humorous, forceful figure of speech!'
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: some butting animal, a goat I seem to see, preferably,
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  Speaker 1: forcing its way into a group or closed circle of persons.
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  Speaker 1: His gleeful analysis of the phrase had such evident charm
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  Speaker 1: for him that Mount Dunstan broke into a shout of laughter,
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  Speaker 1: even as G. Selden had done at the adroit mention
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  Speaker 1: of Weber and Fields.' Shall we ride over together to
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  Speaker 1: see him this morning? An hour with G. Selden, surrounded
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  Speaker 1: by the atmosphere of Rubin S. Vanderpool, would be a
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  Speaker 1: cheering thing,' he said. It would be, Mr. Penzance answered.
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  Speaker 1: Let us go by all means. We should not, I suppose,
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  Speaker 1: with keen delight, be butting in upon Lady Amstruthers too early.
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  Speaker 1: He was quite enraptured with his own aptness. Like G. Selden,
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  Speaker 1: I should not like to butt in, he added. The
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  Speaker 1: scent and warmth and glow of a glorious morning filled
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  Speaker 1: the hour. Combining themselves with a certain normal human gaiety
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  Speaker 1: which surrounded the mere thought of G. Selden, they were
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  Speaker 1: good things for Mount Dunstan. LIFE WAS STRONG AND YOUNG
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  Speaker 1: IN HIM, AND HE HAD LAUGHED A BIG YOUNG LAUGH
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  Speaker 1: WHICH HAD PERHAPS TENDED TO THE WAKING IN HIM OF
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  Speaker 1: THE FEELING HE WAS SUDDENLY CONSCIOUS OF, THAT A SIX-MILE
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  Speaker 1: RIDE OVER A WHITE TREED APPLE SUNLIT ROAD WOULD BE
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  Speaker 1: PLEASANT ENOUGH, AND AFTER ALL, IF AT THE END OF
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  Speaker 1: THE GALLOP ONE CAME AGAIN UPON THAT OTHER IN WHOM
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  Speaker 1: LIFE WAS STRONG AND YOUNG, AND BLOOMED ON ROSE CHEEK,
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  Speaker 1: AND WAS THE FAR FIRE IN THE BLUE DEEPS OF
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  Speaker 1: LOVELY EYES, AND THE SLIM STRAIGHTNESS OF THE FAIR BODY,
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  Speaker 1: WHY WOULD IT NOT BE IN A WAY ALL TO
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  Speaker 1: THE GOOD?' He had thought of her on more than
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  Speaker 1: one day, and felt that he wanted to see her again.
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  Speaker 1: Let us go, he answered Penzance. One can call on
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  Speaker 1: an invalid at any time. Lady Anstruthers will forgive us.
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  Speaker 1: In less than an hour's time they were on their way.
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  Speaker 1: They laughed and talked as they rode, their horses' hooves
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  Speaker 1: striking out a cheerful ringing accompaniment to their voices. There
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  Speaker 1: is nothing more exhilarating than the hollow, regular ring and
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  Speaker 1: click-clack of good hooves going well over a fine old
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  Speaker 1: Roman road in the morning sunlight. They talked of the
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  Speaker 1: junior assistant salesman, and of Miss Vanderpool. Penzance was much
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  Speaker 1: pleased by the prospect of seeing this delightful and unusual girl.
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  Speaker 1: He had heard stories of her, as had Lord Westholt.
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  Speaker 1: He knew of old Dobie's pipe, and of Mrs. Weldon's
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  Speaker 1: respite from the Union, and though such incidents would seem
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  Speaker 1: mere trifles to the dweller in great towns, He had
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  Speaker 1: himself lived and done his work long enough in villages
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  Speaker 1: to know the village mind and the scale of proportions
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  Speaker 1: by which its gladness and sadness were measured. He knew
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  Speaker 1: more of all this than Mount Dunstan could, since Mount
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  Speaker 1: Dunstan's existence had isolated itself from rather gloomy choice. But
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  Speaker 1: as he rode Mount Dunstan knew that he liked to
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  Speaker 1: hear these things. There was the suggestion of new life
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  Speaker 1: and new thought in them, and such suggestion was good
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  Speaker 1: for any man or woman either. who had fallen into
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  Speaker 1: living in a dull, narrow groove.' It' s the new life
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  Speaker 1: in her which strikes me,' he said.' She' s brought wealth
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  Speaker 1: with her, and wealth is power to do the good
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  Speaker 1: or evil that grows in a man's soul. But she
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  Speaker 1: has brought something more. She might have come here and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: brought all the sumptuousness of a fashionable young beauty who
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: drove through the village and drew people to their windows,
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  Speaker 1: and made clodhoppers scratch their heads and pull their forelocks,
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  Speaker 1: and children bob curtsies and stare.' She might have come
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  Speaker 1: and gone and left a mind-dazzling memory and nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: A few sovereigns tossed here and there would have earned
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  Speaker 1: her a reputation, but by gee, to quote Selden, she
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  Speaker 1: has begun living with them, as if her ancestors had
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  Speaker 1: done it for six hundred years. And what I see
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  Speaker 1: is that if she had come without a penny in
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  Speaker 1: her pocket she would have done the same thing.' He
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  Speaker 1: paused a pondering moment and then drew a sharp breath
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: which was an exclamation in itself.' She' s life,' he said.
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  Speaker 1: She is life itself. Good God, what a thing it
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  Speaker 1: is for a man or woman to be life, instead
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  Speaker 1: of a mass of tissue and muscle and nerve dragged
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  Speaker 1: about by the mere mechanism of living!' Penzance had listened seriously.'
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  Speaker 1: What you say is very suggestive,' he commented.' It strikes
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  Speaker 1: me as true, too. You have seen something of her also,
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  Speaker 1: at least more than I have.'' I did not think
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  Speaker 1: these things when I saw her, though I suppose I
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  Speaker 1: felt them unconsciously. I have reached this way of summing
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  Speaker 1: her up by processes of exclusion and inclusion. One hears
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  Speaker 1: of her as you know yourself, and one thinks her over.'
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  Speaker 1: You have thought her over?'' A lot, rather grumpily. A
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  Speaker 1: beautiful female creature inevitably gives an unbeautiful male creature something
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  Speaker 1: to think of, if he's not otherwise actively employed. I
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  Speaker 1: am not. She has become a sort of dawning relief
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  Speaker 1: to my hopeless humours.' Being a low and unworthy beast,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I am sometimes resentful enough of the unfairness of things.
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  Speaker 1: She has too much. When they rode through Stornham Village,
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  Speaker 1: they saw signs of work already done and work still
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  Speaker 1: in hand. There were no broken windows or palings or
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  Speaker 1: hanging wicket-gates. Cottage gardens had been put in order, and
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  Speaker 1: there were evidences of such cheering touches as new bits
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  Speaker 1: of window-curtain and strong-looking young plants blooming between them. So
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  Speaker 1: many small but necessary things had been done that the
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  Speaker 1: whole village wore the aspect of a place which had
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  Speaker 1: taken heart and was facing existence in a hopeful spirit.
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  Speaker 1: A year ago Mount Dunstan and his vicar riding through
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  Speaker 1: it had been struck by its neglected and dispirited look.
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  Speaker 1: As they entered the hall of the court Miss Vanderpool
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  Speaker 1: was descending the staircase. She was laughing a little to herself,
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  Speaker 1: and she looked pleased when she saw them.' It is
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  Speaker 1: good of you to come,' she said as they crossed
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  Speaker 1: the hall to the drawing-room. but I told him I
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  Speaker 1: really thought you would. I have just been talking to him,
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  Speaker 1: and he was a little uncertain as to whether he
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  Speaker 1: had assumed too much.'' As to whether he had butted in,'
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  Speaker 1: said Mr. Penzance,' I think he must have said that.''
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  Speaker 1: He did. He also was afraid that he might have
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  Speaker 1: been too fresh,' answered Betty.' On our part,' put in Mr.
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  Speaker 1: Penzance with gentle glee,' we hesitated a moment in fear
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  Speaker 1: lest we also might appear to be butting in, Then
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  Speaker 1: they all laughed together. They were laughing when Lady Anstruthers entered,
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  Speaker 1: and she herself joined them. But to Mount Dunstan, who
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  Speaker 1: felt her to be somehow a touching little person, there
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  Speaker 1: was manifest a tenderness in her feeling for G. Selden.
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  Speaker 1: For that matter, however, there was something already beginning to
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  Speaker 1: be rather affectionate in the attitude of each of them.
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  Speaker 1: They went upstairs to find him lying in state upon
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  Speaker 1: a big sofa placed near a window, and his joy
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  Speaker 1: at the sight of them was a genuine human thing.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, he had pondered a good deal in secret
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  Speaker 1: on the possibility of these swell people, thinking he had
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  Speaker 1: more than his share of gall, to expect them to
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  Speaker 1: remember him after he passed on his junior assistant salesman's way.
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  Speaker 1: Ruben S. Vanderpool's daughters were of the highest of his
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  Speaker 1: four hundred, but they were Americans, and Americans were not
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  Speaker 1: as a rule so stuck on themselves as the English.
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  Speaker 1: And these two swells came as friendly as you please,
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  Speaker 1: and that nice old chap that was a vicar smiling
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  Speaker 1: and giving him the glad hand. Betty and Mount Dunstan
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  Speaker 1: left Mr. Penzance talking to the convalescent after a short time.
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  Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan had asked to be shown the gardens. He
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  Speaker 1: wanted to see the wonderful things he had heard had
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  Speaker 1: been already done to them. They went down the stairs
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  Speaker 1: together and passed through the drawing-room to the pleasure-grounds. The
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  Speaker 1: once-neglected lawns had already been mown and rolled, clipped and trimmed,
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  Speaker 1: until they spread before the eye huge measures of green velvet,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: even the beds girdling and adorning them were brilliant with flowers.' Kedgers,'
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  Speaker 1: said Betty, waving her hand,' in my ignorance I thought
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  Speaker 1: we must wait for blossoms until next year. But it
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  Speaker 1: appears that wonders can be bought all ready to bloom
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: for one from nursery gardens, and can be made to
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  Speaker 1: grow with care and daring and passionate affection.' I have
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  Speaker 1: seen Kedgers turn pale with anguish as he hung over
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  Speaker 1: a bed of transplanted things which seemed to droop too long.
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  Speaker 1: They droop just at first, you know. and then they
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  Speaker 1: slowly lift their heads, slowly as if to listen to
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  Speaker 1: a voice calling, calling. Once I sat for quite a
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  Speaker 1: long time before a rose watching it. When I saw
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  Speaker 1: it begin to listen, I felt a little trembling pass
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  Speaker 1: over my body. I seemed to be so strangely near
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  Speaker 1: to such a strange thing. It was life, life coming
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  Speaker 1: back in answer to what we cannot hear.' She had
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  Speaker 1: begun lightly, and then her voice had changed. It was
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  Speaker 1: very quiet at the end of her speaking. Mount Dunstan
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  Speaker 1: simply repeated her last words,' To what we cannot hear.''
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  Speaker 1: One feels it so much in a garden,' she said.'
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  Speaker 1: I have never lived in a garden of my own.
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  Speaker 1: This is not mine, but I have been living in
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  Speaker 1: it with Kedger's. One is so close to life in it,
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  Speaker 1: the stirring of the brown earth, the piercing through of
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  Speaker 1: green spears, that breaking of buds and pouring forth of scent.
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  Speaker 1: Why shouldn't one tremble if one thinks? I have stood
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: in a potting shed and watched Kedges fill a shallow
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  Speaker 1: box with damp, rich mould and scatter over it a
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  Speaker 1: thin layer of infinitesimal seeds. Then he moistens them and
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  Speaker 1: carries them reverently to his altars in a greenhouse. The
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  Speaker 1: ledges in Kedges' greenhouse are altars.' I think he offers
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  Speaker 1: prayers before them. Why not? I should. And when one
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  Speaker 1: comes to see them, the moist seeds are swelled to fullness,
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  Speaker 1: and when one comes again, they are bursting. And the
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  Speaker 1: next time, tiny green things are curling outward, and at
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  Speaker 1: last there is a fairy forest of tiniest pale green
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  Speaker 1: stems and leaves, and one is standing close to the
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  Speaker 1: secret of the world. And why should not one prostrate oneself,
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  Speaker 1: breathing softly? and touching one's odd forehead to the earth.
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  Speaker 1: Mount Dunstan turned and looked at her, a pause in
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  Speaker 1: his step. They were walking down a turfed path, and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: over their heads meeting branches of new leaves hung. Something
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: in his movement made her turn and pause also. They
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: both paused, and quite unknowingly.' Do you know,' he said
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: in a low and rather unusual voice,' that as we
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  Speaker 1: were on our way here, I said of you to
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Benzance that you were life— you?' For a few seconds as
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  Speaker 1: they stood so his look held her, their eyes involuntarily
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and strangely held each other, something softly glowing in the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: sunlight falling on them both, something raining down in the
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  Speaker 1: song of a rising skylark trilling in the blue a
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  Speaker 1: field away, something in the warmed incense of blossoms near
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  Speaker 1: them was calling, calling in the voice, though they did
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: not know they heard. Strangely a splendid blush rose in
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: a fair flood under her skin. She was conscious of it,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and felt a second's amazed impatience that she should colour
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: like a schoolgirl suspecting a compliment. He did not look
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: at her as a man looks who has made a
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  Speaker 1: pretty speech. His eyes met hers straight and thoughtfully, and
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  Speaker 1: he repeated his last words as he had before repeated hers.
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  Speaker 1: That you were life, you. The bluebells under water were
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: for the moment incredibly lovely, her feeling about the blush
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: melted away as the blush itself had done.' I' m so
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  Speaker 1: glad you said that,' she answered.' It was a beautiful
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  Speaker 1: thing to say. I have often thought that I should
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  Speaker 1: like it to be true.'' It is true,' he said.
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  Speaker 1: Then the skylark, showering golden rain, swept down to earth
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  Speaker 1: and its nest in the meadow, and they walked on.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: She learned from him as they walked together, and he
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: also learned from her, in a manner which built for
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: them as they went from point to point a certain
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: degree of delicate intimacy, gradually, during their ramble, tending to
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  Speaker 1: make discussion and question possible.' Her intelligent and broad interest
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: in the work on the estate, her frank desire to
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  Speaker 1: acquire such practical information as she lacked, aroused in himself
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: an interest he had previously seen no reason that he
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: should feel. He realised that his outlook upon the unusual
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  Speaker 1: situation was being illuminated by an intelligence at once brilliant
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and fine, while it was also full of nice shading.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: The situation, of course, was unusual. a beautiful young sister-in-law
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: appearing upon the dark horizon of a shamefully ill-used estate,
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  Speaker 1: and restoring, with touches of a wand of gold, what
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a fellow who was a blackguard should have set in
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: order years ago. That Lady Anstruther's money should have rescued
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  Speaker 1: her boy's inheritance instead of being spent upon lavish viciousness
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: went without saying. What Mount Dunstan was most struck by
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: was the perfect clearness in its combination with a certain
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: judicial good-breeding in Miss Vanderpool's view of the matter. She
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: made no confidences, beautifully candid as her manner was, but
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: he saw that she clearly understood the thing she was doing,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and that if her sister had had no son she
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: would not have done this, but something totally different. He
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: had an idea that Lady Anstruthers would have been swiftly
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and lightly swept back to New York, and Sir Nigel
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: left to his own devices, in which case Stornham Court
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and its village would gradually have crumbled to decay. It
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: was for Sir Uhtred Anstruthers the place was being restored.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: She was quite clear on the matter of Entail. He
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: wondered at first, not unnaturally, how a girl had learned
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: certain things she had obviously a clear knowledge of. As
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: they continued to converse, he learned Ruben S. Vanderpool was
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: without doubt a man remarkable, not only in the matter
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of being the owner of vast wealth. The rising flood
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of his millions had borne him upon its strange surface
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a thinking, not an unthinking, being, in fact a strong
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  Speaker 1: and fine intelligence. His thousands of miles of yearly journeying
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: in his sumptuous private car had been the means of
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: his accumulating not merely added gains, but ideas, points of view, emotions,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a human outlook worth counting as an asset. His daughter,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: when she had travelled with him, had seen and talked
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: with him of all he himself had seen. When she
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: had not been his companion, she had heard from him
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: afterwards all best worth hearing. she had become, without any
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: special process, familiar with the technicalities of huge business schemes,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: with law and commerce and political situations. Even her childish
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: interest in the world of enterprise and labour had been passionate.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: So she had acquired, inevitably, while almost unconsciously, a remarkable education.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: If he had not been himself, he might easily have
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: grown tired of a little girl constantly wanting to hear things,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: constantly asking questions, she said. But he did not get tired.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: We invented a special knock on the door of his
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: private room. It said,' May I come in, father?' If
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: he was busy, he answered with one knock on his desk,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and I went away. If he had time to talk,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: he called out,' Come, Betty,' and I went to him.
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  Speaker 1: I used to sit upon the floor and lean against
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  Speaker 1: his knee. He had a beautiful way of stroking my
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: hair or my hand as he talked. He trusted me.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: He told me of great things even before he had
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: talked of them to men. He knew I would never
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: speak of what was said between us in his room.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: That was part of his trust. He said once that
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: it was a part of the evolution of race, that
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: men had begun to expect of women what in past
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: ages they really only expected of each other. Mount Dunstan
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: hesitated before speaking.' You mean absolute faith apart from affection?'' Yes,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the power to be quite silent even when one is
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: tempted to speak, if to speak might betray what it
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: is wiser to keep to oneself because it is another
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: man's affair.' the kind of thing which is good faith
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: among business men it applies to small things as much
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: as to large and to other things than business mount
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: dunstan recalling his own childhood and his own father felt
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: again the pressure of the remote mental suggestion that she
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: had had too much a childhood and girlhood like this
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the affection and companionship of a man of large and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: ordered intelligence of clear and judicial outlook upon an immense
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: area of life and experience There was no cause for
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: wonder that her young womanhood was all it presented to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: himself as well as to others. Recognising the shadow of
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: resentment in his thought, he swept it away, an inward
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: sense making it clear to him that if their positions
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: had been reversed, she would have been more generous than himself.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: He pulled himself together with an unconscious movement of his shoulders.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Here was the day of early June, the gold of
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the sun in its morning, the green shadows, the turf
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: they walked on together, the skylark rising again from the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: meadow and showering down its song. Why think of anything else?
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: What a line that was which swept from her chin
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: down her long, slim throat to its hollow! The colour
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: between the velvet of her close-set lashes, the remembrance of
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: her curious, splendid blush, made the man's lost and unlived
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: youth come back to him. What did it matter whether
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: she was American or English? What did it matter whether
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: she was insolently rich or beggarly poor?' he would let
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: himself go and forget all but the pleasure of the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: sight and hearing of her. So as they went they
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: found themselves laughing together and talking without restraint. They went
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: through the flower and kitchen gardens, they saw the once
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: fallen wall rebuilt now with the old brick, they visited
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the greenhouses and came upon Kedgers entranced with business, but
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: enraptured at being called upon to show his treasures. His eyes,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: turning magnetised upon Betty, revealed the story of his soul.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: mount dunstan remarked that when he spoke to her of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: his flowers it was as if there existed between them
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the sympathy which might be engendered between two who had
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: sat up together night after night with delicate children he's
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: stronger to-day miss he said as they paused before a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: new wonderful bloom what he's getting now is good for
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: him i had to change his food miss but this
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: seems all right his colour's better betty herself bent over
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the flower as she might have bent over a child
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: her eyes softened she touched a leaf with a slim
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: finger as delicately as if it had been a newborn
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: baby's cheek as mount Dunstan watched her, he drew a
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: step nearer to her side. For the first time in
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: his life he felt the glow of a normal and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: simple pleasure, untouched by any bitterness. End of Chapter 27