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Reading books fiction Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself.



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Read books online » Fiction » The Maid of Maiden Lane by Amelia E. Barr (adventure books to read TXT) 📖

Book online «The Maid of Maiden Lane by Amelia E. Barr (adventure books to read TXT) 📖». Author Amelia E. Barr



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“It is nearly dark,” said Van Heemskirk, “and to-night thou art in the clouds. The land and the water will be alike to thee. Rest until the morning.”

“I fear not the dark. I know the road by night or by day.”

“Yet, even so, mind what I tell thee—if thou ride in the dark, be not wiser than thy beast.”

Then they walked with him to the door, and watched him leap to his saddle and ride into the twilight trembling over the misty meadows, trickling with dews. And a great melancholy fell over them, and they could not resume the conversation. Joris re-lit his pipe, and Lysbet went softly and thoughtfully about her household duties. It was one of those hours in which Life distills for us her vague melancholy wine; and Joris and Lysbet drank deeply of it.

The moon was in its third day, and the silent crescent has no calmer and sweeter time; yet Joris it inclined to a sad presentiment. “In my heart there is a fear, Lysbet,” he said softly. “I think our boy has gone a road he will dearly rue. I foresee disputing, and wounded hearts, and lives made barren by many disappointed hopes.”

“Nothing of the kind,” answered Lysbet cheerfully. “Our little Joris is so happy to-night, why wilt thou think evil for him? To think evil is to bring evil. Out of foolishness or perchance such a great love has not come. No, indeed! That it comes from heaven I am sure; and to heaven I will leave its good fortune.”

“Pleasant are thy hopes, Lysbet; but, too often, vain and foolish.”

“Thy reasoning, is it any wiser? No. Often I have found it wrong. One thing the years have said to me, it is this—‘Lysbet put not thy judgment in the place of Providence. If thou trust Providence, thou hast the easy heart of a child of God; if thou trust to thine own judgment, thou hast the troubled heart of an anxious woman.’”







CHAPTER VII — ARENTA’S MARRIAGE

For a few weeks, Hyde’s belief that the very stars would connive with a true lover seemed a reliable one. Madame Jacobus, attracted at their first meeting to the youth, soon gave him an astonishing affection. And yet this warm love of an old woman for youth and beauty was a very natural one—a late development of the maternal instinct leading her even to what seemed an abnormal preference. For she put aside her nephew’s claims with hardly a thought, and pleased herself day by day in so managing and arranging events that Hyde and Cornelia met, as a matter of course. Arenta was not, however, deceived; she understood every maneuvre, but the success of her own affairs depended very much on her aunt’s cooperation and generosity, and so she could not afford, at this time, to interfere for her brother.

“But I shall alter things a little as soon as I am married,” she told herself. “I will take care of that. At this time I must see, and hear, and say nothing. I must act politely—for I am always polite—and Athanase also is in favour of politeness—but I take leave to say that Joris Hyde shall not carry so much sail when a few weeks are gone by. So happy he looks! So pleased with himself! So sure of all he says and does! I am angry at him all the time. Well, then, it will be a satisfaction to abate a little the confidence of this cock-sure young man.”

Arenta’s feelings were in kind and measure shared by several other people; Doctor Moran held them in a far bitterer mood; but he, also,—environed by circumstances he could neither alter nor command,—was compelled to satisfy his disapproval with promises of a future change. For the wedding of Arenta Van Ariens had assumed a great social importance. Arenta herself had talked about the affair until all classes were on the tiptoe of expectation. The wealthy Dutch families, the exclusive American set, the home and foreign diplomatic circles, were alike looking forward to the splendid ceremony, and to the great breakfast at Peter Van Ariens’ house, and to the ball which Madame Jacobus was to give in the evening. None of the younger people had ever been in madame’s fantastic ballroom, and they were eager for this entry into her wonderful house. For their mothers—seeing things through the mists of Time—had, innocently enough, exaggerated the marvels of the Chinese lanterns, the feather flowers and gorgeously plumed birds, the cases of tropical butterflies and beetles, and the fascination of the pagan deities, until they were ready to listen to any tale about Madame Jacobus and to swallow it like cream.

So Doctor Moran, being physician and family friend to most of the invited guests, had to listen to such reminiscences and anticipations wherever he went. He knew that he could not talk against the great public current, and that in the excited state of social feeling it would be a kind of treason even to hint disapproval of Arenta, or of any of her friends or doings. But he suffered. He was questioned by some, he was enlightened by others; his opinion was asked about dresses and ceremonies, he was constantly congratulated on his daughter’s prominence as bridesmaid, and he was sent for professionally, that he might be talked to socially. Yet if he ventured to hint dissatisfaction, or to express himself by a scornful “Pooh! Pooh!” he was answered by looks of such astonishment, of such quick-springing womanly suspicions, that he could not doubt the kind of conversation which followed his exit:

“Do you think Doctor Moran VERY clever?”

“Most people think so.”

“He is so unsympathetic. Doctor Moore knows everything Madame Jacobus is going to have, and to do. I think doctors ought to be chatty. It is so good for their patients to be cheered up a little.”

Doctor Moran divined perfectly this taste for gossip and MEDICINAL sympathy combined, and to administer it was, to him, more nauseous than his own bitterest drugs. So in these days he was not a cheerful man to live with, and Cornelia’s beauty and radiant happiness affected him very much as Hyde’s pronounced satisfaction affected Arenta. One morning, as he was returning home after a round of disagreeable visits, he saw Cornelia and Hyde coming up Broadway together. They were sauntering side by side in all the lazy happiness of perfect love; and as he looked at them the sorrow of an immense disillusion filled him to the lips. He had believed himself, as yet, to be the first and the dearest in his child’s love; but in that moment his eyes were opened, and he felt as if he had been suddenly thrust out from it and the door closed upon him.

He did the wisest thing possible: he went home to his wife. She heard him ride with clattering haste into the stone court, and soon after enter the house from the back, banging every door after him. She knew then that something had angered him—that he was in that temper which makes a woman cry, but which a man can only relieve by noisy or emphatic movement of some kind. A resolute look came into her face and she said to herself, “John has always had his own way—and my way also; but Cornelia’s way—the child must surely have something to say about that.”

“Where is Cornelia, Ava?” He asked the question with a

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