The Laughing Girl

Оглавление

Chambers Robert William. The Laughing Girl

FOREWORD

I. AN INHERITANCE

II. AL FRESCO

III. IN THE CELLAR

IV. MODUS VIVENDI

V. AN ODD SONG

VI. MASTER AND MAID

VII. CONSERVATION AND CONVERSATION

VIII. THE KNEES OF THE GODS

IX. REX, REGIS —

X. CLELIA

XI. A PYJAMA PARTY

XII. ROYALTY

XIII. IN THE RAIN

XIV. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. SMITH

XV. A TRAVELING CIRCUS

XVI. THE COUNTESS

XVII. MORE MYSTERY

XVIII. THE GANGSTERS

XIX. CONFIDENCES

XX. A LOCAL STORM

XXI. SUS SCROFA

XXII. PARTICEPS CRIMINIS

XXIII. THUSIS

XXIV. RAOUL

XXV. THE DUCHESS OF NAXOS

Отрывок из книги

There was a red-headed slattern sweeping the veranda – nobody else visible about the house. All the shutters of the stone and timber chalet were closed; cow-barn, stable, springhouse and bottling house appeared to be deserted. Weeds smothered the garden where a fountain played above a brimming basin of gray stone; cat-grass grew rank on the oval lawn around the white-washed flag-pole from which no banner flapped. An intense and heated silence possessed the place. Tall mountains circled it, cloud-high, enormous, gathered around the little valley as though met in solemn council there under the vast pavilion of sky.

From the zenith of the azure-tinted tent hung that Olympian lantern called the sun, flooding every crested snow-peak with a nimbus of pallid fire.

.....

"Sure," said I frivolously; "take this cake of soap and chase her into the fountain out there."

"All the same," he added, "if she'd wash her face and fix her hair and stand up straight she'd have – er – elements."

.....