are intelligent as well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, 'reality control'. In Newspeak it is called DOUBLETHINK, though DOUBLETHINK comprises much else as well. DOUBLETHINK means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of DOUBLETHINK he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. DOUBLETHINK lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (116 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies--all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word DOUBLETHINK it is necessary to exercise DOUBLETHINK. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of DOUBLETHINK one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of DOUBLETHINK that the Party has been able--and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years--to arrest the course of history. All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became stupid and arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown; or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say, either through consciousness or through unconsciousness. It is the achievement of the Party to have produced a system of thought in which both conditions can exist simultaneously. And upon no other intellectual basis could the dominion of the Party be made permanent. If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own infallibility with the Power to learn from past mistakes. It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK are those who invented DOUBLETHINK and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane. One clear


wasn’t the kind of person this kind of thing happened to. Which meant that I needed to be the kind of person this kind of thing didn’t happen to. I needed to be like him, and the only way to do that was to make this not happen, or to grit through it when it did, and eventually it would stop—it had to stop—and I would be free. * * * Mengetsu’s office had been remodeled since I’d last visited, the wallpaper a distracting tessellation of a set of pastel squares, the lights deafeningly bright, her slow-blinking secretary sheltered from us patients by a sheet of fiberglass. The clock on the wall behind me was loud, and I tapped my foot as fast as the second hand moved, scrolling through NuLife’s social media aimlessly, not to digest anything of value so much as prove to myself that I could still see my phone’s screen. I had an unread text from my mom asking how I was—it seemed impossible to respond truthfully given where I was and what I was there for. The people waiting with me had bandaged eyes or eyepatches or wore wraparound sunglasses, their heads inclined in the direction of the ticking clock. I could tell from a quick survey of the room that these people didn’t dwell in my underworld: they were all bewildered, newly blinded, unaccustomed to the dark. The mole rat doesn’t acquire its defects, it’s born with them. That made me different from them. The secretary called my name and led me back into the exam room, where I sat in the intimidating chair until Mengetsu came in, her face stern as always, my chart in her hands. “You’re back,” she said. “For a checkup,” I said. She closed my chart and sat down across from me. “Did you try the screen reader?” “Works great,” I lied. “What about the mobility aids?” I tilted my head from side to side. “Some of them.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s wrong, then?” “Headaches. Sometimes my vision gets blurry. I don’t know what it is.” She crossed her legs. I felt immediately as though I’d said the wrong thing. “Headaches?” “Like a pressure behind my eyes. Or in them.” “Has anyone ever taken a look at your eyes with a tonometer?” “I don’t know what that is.” She looked momentarily at the floor, then back up at me. “Come with me into the next room.” We walked to a room that contained a machine that looked like a sophisticated device for the gouging of eyes. I was supposed to sit in the chair and slide my face into a kind of brace directly in front of what looked like the lens of a miniature microscope. “That’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “Go ahead and sit down.” I did, removing my glasses, and she instructed me to keep both eyes open as wide as possible. Then she sat behind the microscope and a flash of UV-bright white passed across my left eye, then my right. She did


dismisses the doubt in her mind, refusing to accept it. It was what her mother used as an excuse to give up on one relationship after another. Fooling herself into thinking the grass was greener elsewhere, as soon as things got hard. Her never-ending search for a fairy tale kept her from seeing any relationship grow to fruition, because she was never willing to put in the work to make life what she wanted it to be. She forces her attention back to the billionaire standing before her. “Your home is incredible.” “I’m glad you like it. You’re incredible.” Brody hands her a glass before lifting his own. “To the Doctor of the Year.” Their glasses clink together. After they each take a sip, Brody takes her glass and sets them back on the table. He closes the space between them, and she takes in the cedar scent of his undoubtedly expensive cologne. He rests his hands on either side of her waist. She places her palms against his muscular chest. He leans forward, and their lips meet. She wraps her arms around the back of his neck, noting the unfamiliar feel of his tongue exploring her mouth. She presses her body against his, wanting to embrace the moment. And push her cheating husband to the far corner of her mind. Everything about Brody feels unfamiliar. And she needs more. A police siren sounds in the distance. Ethan. She pulls away, breathing hard. I’ve got to do this. The playful look on Brody’s face is replaced by one of longing. “Are you okay?” He steps toward her, resting his forehead against hers. Sloane closes her eyes, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against hers. The siren fades. Sloane forces herself to focus on Brody’s hand moving through her hair before it slides down her arm, and he intertwines his fingers with hers. Ethan didn’t think of me before he slept with his coworker. Or did he? “I’m more than okay.” She kisses Brody again before he steps back and leads her inside the house. They move in silence through the first floor of the home until they come to a large bedroom, softly illuminated by a floor lamp in the opposite corner to the door. After leading her through the doorway, Brody turns and pulls her against him. He lifts her off the ground, pressing her back into the wall as she wraps her legs around him. His mouth travels down her neck then returns to her lips. He steps back, setting her back on her feet. She lifts his shirt to the top of his chest, and Brody pulls it over his shoulders. She places her hands on his abs, pushing him toward the made bed in the middle of the room. His hazel eyes meld intently with hers, and she admires the sapphire ring around his irises. As Brody unzips the back of her dress, her eyes catch on a large black-and-white photo on the wall. “What’s wrong?” His eyes follow her gaze as she stares at the


the bars with an expression that’s one part concern, two parts disbelief. He wants me to say no. Probably to spare him from looking like a fool when word of it inevitably spreads through town like the flu. Unlike him, I don’t have the energy to lie. “Yeah. That’s what I think.” “That’s all the more reason to get you away from this place.” It gives me an even greater reason to stay. Since the town’s only police detective doesn’t believe Mary was murdered, it’s up to me to prove that she was. And to find out who did it. Because it all seems to hinge on Lenora’s past—and how much of it Mary knew—I can’t leave until I learn the truth. I turn back toward Hope’s End and say, “Dad, go home.” “Kit, wait.” I don’t. I continue up the drive, fully aware my father’s still watching, hoping I’ll turn around, open the gate, follow him back to a house I no longer recognize. I keep my eyes fixed on the lights of Hope’s End. It’s not home, either. But I can’t shake the feeling that my future rests inside this place where tragedy struck twice. Two separate nights. Decades apart. Yet linked to one person who I’m pretty sure has all the answers but won’t reveal them until she gets what she wants. Back in the house, I head straight for Lenora’s room. She’s still awake, her bright eyes aimed at the ceiling. “Do we have a deal?” I say. She taps twice against the call button. The matter’s settled. Lenora’s going outside. And the price for taking her there is the truth. THIRTY An opportunity to sneak Lenora outside presents itself two days later, when everyone else at Hope’s End leaves to attend the funeral of Mary Milton. Although the mood is solemn, the weather is anything but. It’s a gorgeous autumn day—perhaps the last one of the season. Sun floods the sky, throwing off rays that take the sting out of the October chill. The cloudless sky is so blue it reminds me of sapphires. The Atlantic is calm, and for once the wind decides to take the day off. Not that the weather matters. Even if a hurricane was blowing through, I’d take Lenora outside when given the chance. For the past two days, she continued to be mostly unresponsive, tapping out answers only when necessary. The result was long days of tense silence and uninterrupted boredom. The two of us simply sat, doing nothing. After that, even I’m eager to get outdoors. I haven’t told anyone else about my plan. Not even Lenora. I was tempted to tell Carter, but I opted not to just to be on the safe side. The last thing I want to do is run the risk of Mrs. Baker finding out and putting a stop to it. I watch from the top of the Grand Stairs as the others gather to leave, Archie and Carter in dark suits, Jessie going against the grain in a white wrap dress, and Mrs.


ANTONYMS: (adj) wordless. ANTONYMS: (adj) ANTONYMS: (v) divide, exclude, voluntary, optional, dispensable; (n) loquacious, eloquent, talkative. 216 The Scarlet Letter sustained towards one another. Yet did the physician, in his dark way, creep frightfully near the secret.% "Were it not better," said he, "that you use my poor skill tonight? Verily, dear sir, we must take pains to make you strong and vigorous for this occasion of the Election discourse. The people look for great things from you, apprehending that another year may come about and find their pastor gone." "Yes, to another world," replied the minister with pious resignation. "Heaven grant it be a better one; for, in good sooth, I hardly think to tarry with my flock through the flitting seasons of another year! But touching your medicine, kind sir, in my present frame of body I need it not." "I joy to hear it," answered the physician. "It may be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect. Happy man were I, and well deserving of New England's gratitude, could I achieve this cure!" "I thank you from my heart, most watchful friend," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale with a solemn smile. "I thank you, and can but requite your good deeds with my prayers." "A good man's prayers are golden recompense!" rejoined old Roger Chillingworth, as he took his leave. "Yea, they are the current gold coin of the New Jerusalem, with the King's own mint mark on them!" Left alone, the minister summoned a servant of the house, and requested food, which, being set before him, he ate with ravenous appetite. Then flinging the already written pages of the Election Sermon into the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote with such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that he fancied himself inspired; and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to transmit the grand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul an organ pipe as he. However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or go unsolved for ever, he drove his task onward with earnest haste and ecstasy. Thus the night fled away, as if it were a winged steed, and he careering on it; morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the curtains; and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study, and laid it right across the minister's Thesaurus apprehending: (v) apprehend; (n) rapacious, insatiable, edacious, dayspring, twilight, dawning, break perception, thought, recognition. covetous, predatory. ANTONYM: of day, crack of dawn. ANTONYMS: blushing: (adj) rosy, coy, blushful, (adj) moderate. (n) sunset, sundown, nightfall. flushed, red, shy, bashful, requite: (adj, v) pay, gratify, satisfy; (v) unsolved: (adj) unsettled, unanswered, overmodest, ruddy; (adv) blushingly, recompense, reciprocate, compensate, harmonically unresolved, ablush. ANTONYM: (adj) pale. reward, remunerate, reimburse, inexplicable, insoluble, mysterious, frightfully: (adv) awfully, ghastly, return, refund. not solved, open, strange, dissonant, dreadfully, fearfully, hideously, steed: (n) horse, mount, charger, undecided. ANTONYM: (adj) terribly, gruesomely, terrifically, knight, courser, warhorse, pony, apparent. atrociously, horrendously, awful. stallion, mare. winged: (adj) swift, rapid, speedy, ravenous: (adj) hungry, greedy, avid, sunrise:


Get them some refreshments, with my compliments.” “Compliments, Mr. Shepherd?” gasped Cook. “And tell them to stay out of the kitchen, and well out of the way of the ladies.” “Ooh, I think I’m getting a bruise on me hip, Cook,” said Mrs. Bone. “They pinched me that hard.” “Go!” roared Mr. Shepherd. Good. Mrs. Bone wanted a squadron of men near the back gate, ready to keep the road clear when required. Cook turned, irate. “But what about Mr. Doggett, Mr. Shepherd? He won’t want his mews house being overrun by—” Mr. Shepherd flapped her away. “Mr. Doggett is helping up here. William, you sort things out.” “Yes, Mr. Shepherd.” “I want everyone back to work.” Cook gathered her bevy of girls around her. She crossed her arms, eyebrows knit together. “He didn’t ought to do that,” she said as Mr. Shepherd retreated. “Madam won’t like the idea of strangers sitting out in the garden. They might unlock the back gate.” Mrs. Bone didn’t care for this line of thinking in the least. “Oh, you’re a regular detective, ain’t you?” she said. “Got your magnifying glass in your apron, have you? Got your police whistle?” The kitchen girls gaped at her. Mrs. Bone scowled at them. She’d be out of this house soon enough. She was very nearly done being a humble worm. “Ah, shut your mouths. And one of you can help me with these pails.” Cook aimed a frigid stare in her direction. “Help yourself,” she said, and spun on her heel. * * * The Janes had started packing the guest suites on the second floor—and they assumed they had the place to themselves. Their laundry baskets were already heaving with ornaments. Their system was smooth. Lift one thing, wrap it with tissue paper, drop it in the basket. They were steady, focused. They didn’t even hear the door open. “Oi. What are you doing?” The girls whipped round. There was a shadow on the wall. Jane-two’s stomach contracted as she saw one of the house-parlormaids in the doorway, eyes on stalks. “Putting stuff in safekeeping,” said Jane-one, without missing a beat. “Give us a hand, would you?” “Mr. Shepherd said guest suites. Not all the suites.” “I’ll tell him you slowed us down, if you like.” The house-parlormaid stiffened at that. “I’ve only got five minutes.” “That’s all we need.” Jane-two wished she had her logbook with her. Risks made her want to sneeze. “I don’t like this,” she murmured. “Hush,” said Jane-one. 25 Four hours to go The crowd outside was growing restless, waiting for the great folk to arrive. They were like moths to a flame: men after a day at work, dressed in their shirtsleeves, women brandishing paper fans. Didn’t they have homes to go to? Lives to lead? No more than I do, thought Winnie. She hadn’t slept for two days. Her hands were shaking, yet she had planned this moment with precision, and in the end it went exactly as she had pictured. Her own imagination could spin things out of thin


dark expression, Andy isn’t the only one with this idea. Jeanne, who’s only now emerging from the doorway, and evidently is the reason this man knew to look for Emily here, will have a lot of explaining to do. Andy tosses back the rest of his drink and goes to introduce himself to his uninvited guest. “Andrew Fleming,” he says, sticking his hand out. “Gerald Williams, and I wouldn’t have crashed your party if it weren’t urgent. I got on the first airplane after the call from Columbia-Presbyterian, you see,” he says, as if this explains everything. His glasses are not only smudged and crooked, but one of the arms is broken. He’s looking at Emily as if he’s been bitten by a snake and she has the antidote. “Columbia-Presbyterian?” Emily says. “The hospital?” “Yes, well. I figured, you see.” He stops, looking suddenly at a loss. “People in New York have hearts, too, don’t they?” And Emily must really love him if she’s susceptible to a line like that. She kisses Gerald, laughing a little as she does it. “I will murder you if you hurt her,” Andy says cheerfully, remembering that this is what Emily considers the behavior of a decent friend in this situation. “Oh, Jeanne’s already taken care of that,” says Gerald, altogether too easily for a man who’s been threatened with murder twice in one evening. Andy isn’t surprised when they leave shortly thereafter, slipping away down the stairs. The other night, they were late in the newsroom, waiting for a jury verdict to come in, and Andy could feel the presses rumbling beneath his feet, thought he could almost feel the heartbeats of all the people in the building, all of it ready to depend on him, and it didn’t feel horrifying anymore. The paper isn’t a burden or a debt he has to pay, but an opportunity he has. He’s already run two stories about police entrapping men at queer bars and he can run a hundred more. He can keep running them until people care, until something changes. A few months ago he told himself that his choices—that any queer person’s choices—were either to hide or brazen it out, and that’s still true. But there’s another possibility: pushing back against the injustices that force people to make impossible choices. Maybe that’s not the best way to run a newspaper, but as far as he can tell, nobody knows how to run a paper going into this new decade. They’re all making it up as they go along and hoping for the best. Andy can try new things—he can make the Sunday magazine glossy and slick; he can fill up the pages with feature-length stories; he can pack in the foreign correspondents. Andy had always hoped there was a right way to do things, or at least a right destination, and it turns out there isn’t, at least not for him. He has to make that up as he goes along, too. Later, as the sun begins to set over New Jersey in the distance,


I am one of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall judge of him.--I am no flatterer." Mr. Weston was musing. "I hope," said he presently, "I have not been severe upon poor Mrs. Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice; but there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant, Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have met with; and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid to her. She was the instigator. Frank's mother would never have been slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride; but his pride is nothing to his wife's: his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless and tiresome; but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood. She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman; but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill'd them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is an upstart." "Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood who are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs, and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families. A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston. One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before him--I believe, at least--I am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed the purchase before his death." They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away. After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr.


some water, and I handed him a glass, and asked him how he was. " 'Not as ill as I wish,' he replied. 'But leaving out my arm, every inch of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of imps.' " 'Yes, no wonder,' was my next remark. 'Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm. She meant that certain persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her. It's well people don't really rise from their grave, or last night she might have witnessed a repulsive scene! Are not you bruised and cut over your chest and shoulders?' " 'I can't say,' he answered; 'but what do you mean? Did he dare to strike me when I was down?' " 'He trampled on and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground,' I whispered. 'And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth, because he's only half man--- not so much---and the rest fiend.' "Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the counte- nance of our mutual foe, who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him. The longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness through his features. " 'Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I'd go to hell with joy,' groaned the impatient man, writhing to rise, and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the struggle. " 'Nay, it's enough that he has murdered one of you,' I observed aloud. 'At the Grange, every one knows your sister would have been living now had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff. After all, it is preferable to be hated than loved by him. When I recollect how happy we were, how happy Catherine was before he came, I'm fit to curse the day.' "Most likely Heathcliff noticed more the truth of what was said than the spirit of the person who said it. His attention was roused, I saw, for his eyes rained down tears among the ashes, and he drew his breath in suffocating sighs. I stared full at him, and laughed scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a mo- ment towards me; the fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision. " 'Get up, and begone out of my sight,' said the mourner. "I guessed he uttered those words, at least, though his voice was hardly intelligible. " 'I beg your pardon,' I replied. 'But I loved Cather- ine too; and her brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply. Now that she's dead, I see her in Hindley. Hindley has exactly her eyes, if you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red; and her---' " 'Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!' he cried, making a movement that caused me to make one also. " 'But, then,' I continued, holding myself ready to


the gate, and Clare crept towards the house. His absence lasted some considerable time, and when he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for him. He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in charge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the hamlet near, to open and shut the windows. She would come to shut them at sunset. "Now, we can get in through one of the lower windows, and rest there," said he. Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility of watchers. The door was reached a few steps further, and one of the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess in after him. Except the hall the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended the staircase. Up here also the shutters were tightly closed, the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least, by opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind. Clare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across it, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches. A shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy, old-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous four-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running figures, apparently Atalanta's race. "Rest at last!" said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of viands. They remained in great quietness till the caretaker should have come to shut the windows: as a precaution, putting themselves in total darkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should open the door of their chamber for any casual reason. Between six and seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they were in. They heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the door, and go away. Then Clare again stole a chink of light from the window, and they shared another meal, till by-and-by they were enveloped in the shades of night which they had no candle to disperse. LVIII The night was strangely solemn and still. In the small hours she whispered to him the whole story of how he had walked in his sleep with her in his arms across the Froom stream, at the imminent risk of both their lives, and laid her down in the stone coffin at the ruined abbey. He had never known of that till now. "Why didn't you tell me next day?" he said. "It might have prevented much misunderstanding and woe." "Don't think of what's past!" said she. "I am not going to think outside of now. Why should we! Who knows what tomorrow has in store?" But it apparently had no sorrow. The morning was wet and foggy, and Clare, rightly informed that the caretaker only opened the windows on fine days, ventured to creep out of their chamber, and explore the house, leaving Tess asleep. There was no food on the premises, but


felt its claws pinch her soft stomach again, its small triangular head poking under her waistband like a wedge and she slapped one hand down hard over her gut and trapped it against her, pressing it into her body hard, and something sharper than she could imagine cut deep into her belly. She kept pressing, not letting up no matter how deep it sunk in its teeth. It thrashed and writhed and tried to get down her pants, and she stuck her left hand into the buttons of her shirt, popping two of them, and yanked her shirt out of the waistband of her jeans and gripped the hard, bony thing and tore it out and hurled it away. It was lighter than she thought. It flew across the room and hit the far wall with a weightless tap. Louise turned to run and stopped so fast she overbalanced and fell backward onto her butt. Squirrel Baby Jesus crouched in the doorway, its bald tail twitching. Then its mummified tail broke off in mid-twitch, dropping weightlessly to the carpet. Its stump flickered back and forth as the blind squirrel cocked its head, listening for her. As silently as she could, Louise rose to her feet and took one long, quiet step to the right, toward the bathroom door. The Squirrel Baby Jesus raised up on its haunches, sensing the air for vibrations. On the other side of the room the Squirrel Mary she’d thrown against the wall turned itself over. One of its front legs hung at a ninety-degree angle. The Squirrel Joseph still crouched on the comforter, and like the one in the door, it raised itself up on its haunches, listening. Louise froze. The bathroom door was too far away. She needed at least three big steps to get there and they were faster than her. But it was her only chance. She took another slow, silent step. Underneath the carpet, the floor creaked. The squirrel on the comforter swung its head in her direction. Louise held her breath. The Squirrel Baby Jesus lowered itself onto all fours and took a slooow step in Louise’s direction. She tried to ease her foot off the carpet as slowly as possible. The squirrel on the comforter lowered itself onto all fours and scrabbled down to the floor headfirst. Louise finally got her foot off the floor. It creaked again. The Squirrel Joseph halfway down the comforter froze. Its tail gave a single convulsive twitch. Then it came for her. Louise saw the badminton racquets leaning against the wall and she heard Squirrel Joseph’s claws racing over the carpet, almost on her, and she scooped up a racquet, flipped it so it faced the ground, and slammed it down, trapping the squirrel between its strings and the carpet. It twitched, stronger than she imagined, and wrapped its tiny mummified claws around the strings. Louise raised the racquet and the squirrel came up with it, then she slammed it into the carpet again and stepped on it. Something crunched. The squirrel let go. Louise


“I’m still a plaything for the boys and men here,” she whispers. “If I stop getting my monthly moon water…” She squeezes her shoulders a little tighter as though protecting herself from the world. I had been following along, but now I’m completely lost. “Don’t worry about that,” Miss Zhao responds. “There are things you can take to keep from becoming full with child.” After a moment, she says, “Instead, let us do what we can for Yunxian. Without a mother, she must rely on her grandmother, you, me, even Inky, to set her on a good path. We are the circle of good that surrounds her.” Until tonight, I have never thought about where Poppy came from or even about her feelings, although she knows everything about me, having bathed me, emptied my honeypot, held my forehead when I’ve vomited. I’ve always thought of her as being just my servant—always with me. Now I see she is more than that. As for Miss Zhao… Her words—a circle of good—remain in my mind. I must try to open my heart and sympathies to her too. * * * Once I recover, Grandmother stuns everyone in the inner chambers by inviting Midwife Shi and her daughter to visit us in the pharmacy. Meiling and I are told to sit next to each other on two pearwood stools. Both of us fold our hands in our laps. We wear pretty outfits and ribbons in our hair. Mine are of finer quality, of course, but the midwife has taken great care to make Meiling look like a girl of high standing. The two women sit at opposite sides of a teak table, a porcelain teapot and cups between them, with a bronze vase holding a single orchid set to the side. Grandmother begins the conversation. “I want to propose an idea—a more formal relationship between your daughter and my granddaughter.” Meiling and I exchange glances. This is a totally unexpected announcement. “I realize the two girls are from different classes—” The midwife, who can’t hide her distrust, interrupts to state the obvious. “My daughter has big feet. Yunxian has bound feet.” Grandmother acknowledges this mismatch with one of her own. “Yunxian is studying to be a physician, while Meiling will get filth on her hands when delivering babies.” “My daughter carries my family name, for she has no father. Your granddaughter is descended from—” “We could continue listing all the reasons not to formalize something that many people, including my husband, would find unsatisfactory, but may you and I consider the positives instead? Both girls were born in the Year of the Snake, specifically the Year of the Metal Snake. A Metal Snake can be gifted with a calculating mind and enormous willpower—” “Or a Snake can be a scheming loner,” the midwife says, still unwilling to list a good attribute. “A Metal Snake craves luxury and easy living, which Yunxian was born to,” Grandmother goes on. “A Metal Snake without these comforts can have an envious streak, find it difficult to face failure, and


shrinking towards Holgrave, even while she told him so frankly the doubts with which he affected her. "You will lead me out of my own quiet path. You will make me strive to follow you where it is pathless. I cannot do so. It is not my nature. I shall sink down and perish!" "Ah, Phoebe!" exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh, and a smile that was burdened with thought. "It will be far otherwise than as you forebode. The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. I have a presentiment that, hereafter, it will be my lot to set out trees, to make fences,--perhaps, even, in due time, to build a house for another generation,--in a word, to conform myself to laws and the peaceful practice of society. Your poise will be more powerful than any oscillating tendency of mine." "I would not have it so!" said Phoebe earnestly. "Do you love me?" asked Holgrave. "If we love one another, the moment has room for nothing more. Let us pause upon it, and be satisfied. Do you love me, Phoebe?" "You look into my heart," said she, letting her eyes drop. "You know I love you!" And it was in this hour, so full of doubt and awe, that the one miracle was wrought, without which every human existence is a blank. The bliss which makes all things true, beautiful, and holy shone around this youth and maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad nor old. They transfigured the earth, and made it Eden again, and themselves the two first dwellers in it. The dead man, so close beside them, was forgotten. At such a crisis, there is no death; for immortality is revealed anew, and embraces everything in its hallowed atmosphere. But how soon the heavy earth-dream settled down again! "Hark!" whispered Phoebe. "Somebody is at the street door!" "Now let us meet the world!" said Holgrave. "No doubt, the rumor of Judge Pyncheon's visit to this house, and the flight of Hepzibah and Clifford, is about to lead to the investigation of the premises. We have no way but to meet it. Let us open the door at once." But, to their surprise, before they could reach the street door,--even before they quitted the room in which the foregoing interview had passed,--they heard footsteps in the farther passage. The door, therefore, which they supposed to be securely locked, --which Holgrave, indeed, had seen to be so, and at which Phoebe had vainly tried to enter,--must have been opened from without. The sound of footsteps was not harsh, bold, decided, and intrusive, as the gait of strangers would naturally be, making authoritative entrance into a dwelling where they knew themselves unwelcome. It was feeble, as of persons either weak or weary; there was the mingled murmur of two voices, familiar to both the listeners. "Can it be?" whispered Holgrave. "It is they!" answered Phoebe. "Thank God!--thank God!" And then, as if in sympathy with Phoebe's whispered ejaculation,


Zaphod. "Cool it will you Arthur!" demanded Ford. Arthur would not be deterred. "A party six months ago. On Earth ... England ..." Zaphod shook his head with a tight-lipped smile. "London," insisted Arthur, "Islington." "Oh," said Zaphod with a guilty start, "that party." This wasn't fair on Ford at all. He looked backwards and forwards between Arthur and Zaphod. "What?" he said to Zaphod. "You don't mean to say you've been on that miserable planet as well do you?" "No, of course not," said Zaphod breezily. "Well, I may have just dropped in briefly, you know, on my way somewhere ..." "But I was stuck there for fifteen years!" "Well I didn't know that did I?" "But what were you doing there?" "Looking about, you know." "He gatecrashed a party," persisted Arthur, trembling with anger, "a fancy dress party ..." "It would have to be, wouldn't it?" said Ford. "At this party," persisted Arthur, "was a girl ... oh well, look it doesn't matter now. The whole place has gone up in smoke anyway ..." "I wish you'd stop sulking about that bloody planet," said Ford. "Who was the lady?" "Oh just somebody. Well alright, I wasn't doing very well with her. I'd been trying all evening. Hell, she was something though. Beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, at last I'd got her to myself for a bit and was plying her with a bit of talk when this friend of yours barges up and says Hey doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet." I never saw her again." "Zaphod?" exclaimed Ford. "Yes," said Arthur, glaring at him and trying not to feel foolish. "He only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but ..." "But you must admit he did turn out to be from another planet," said Trillian wandering into sight at the other end of the bridge. She gave Arthur a pleasant smile which settled on him like a ton of bricks and then turned her attention to the ship's controls again. There was silence for a few seconds, and then out of the scrambled mess of Arthur's brain crawled some words. "Tricia McMillian?" he said. "What are you doing here?" "Same as you," she said, "I hitched a lift. After all with a degree in Maths and another in astrophysics what else was there to do? It was either that or the dole queue again on Monday." "Infinity minus one," chattered the computer, "Improbability sum now complete." Zaphod looked about him, at Ford, at Arthur, and then at Trillian. "Trillian," he said, "is this sort of thing going to happen every time we use the Improbability drive?" "Very probably, I'm afraid," she said. ================================================================= Chapter 14 The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive. Its crew of four were ill at ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious principle


handlebars. The image I kept returning to was of a tangled necklace chain. In one of the more normal moments of my later childhood, my mother taught me to rub a chain with olive oil, then take a long, straight pin and start working on the tiniest of gaps, the place with the most give. Once one thing loosened, another could loosen, another. I always felt claustrophobic at the start. But over time I’d learned patience, learned the reward of breathing through my discomfort. What I knew was that we’d found a gap in the knot. I didn’t know what else it would loosen up, and I didn’t want to pull too hard, but I knew if we finessed it, wiggled it gently, other things would follow. Midday, Geoff and I took our laptops to Aroma Mocha and sat looking through the 1995 interview records for any details of the mattress party timeline, any mention of Robbie being there the whole time or of who walked together. The kids who’d been there listed all nineteen students at the mattress party, confirmed that they’d been drinking, talked about when they’d last seen Thalia. Nothing about how scattered they’d been on the trail. The only time it came up, either as a question or an answer, was the State Police asking both Sakina and Bendt Jensen whether Robbie had been there the whole time. Sakina said that to the best of her recollection, he was. Bendt said that he assumed so. They asked Sakina if he could have left early and she said no, because she remembered him helping Stiles walk home on his bad leg. Mike Stiles, in his own interview, talked about Robbie and Dorian helping him back. “It’s amazing,” Geoff said, “that they thought to ask if he left early, but not if he got there late.” “Right. Because bad stuff happens late at night. Bad stuff happens after you’ve been drinking, not before.” Alder texted: LOL, Amy was like, uh, thanks for the theory. She at least agreed it looked like bike mud! Just as we were leaving, setting our empty cups on the counter, Fran texted back: Nine minutes for Jacob, twelve for Max w/ training wheels, if I got the spot right. J says he could do it faster if it weren’t so wet. 25 I deployed myself that night as a weapon. A spy, in the grand tradition of women who trade sex, or the promise of sex, for secrets. Only I was wearing pajama pants and a USC sweatshirt, and all I did was text Mike Stiles. I’m stir-crazy, I wrote. Need to talk to someone not on the fucking witness list. Drinks on balcony? It’s not too cold! When I opened the door he looked composed, but as he stepped inside he flushed. He was aware, at least, that he was a married man entering a woman’s hotel room at night. We sat outside and drank whiskey out of the two ornate glasses from the ice bucket tray. We talked about Lola, about his tripping


asked. "Oh nothing, nothing," she said, "somebody just walked over my grave." She put away from her whatever it was that gave her a pinprick of apprehension, and suggested that I give the family a preview in the livingroom. So Jem squeezed me into my costume, stood at the livingroom door, called out "Po-ork," exactly as Mrs. Merriweather would have done, and I marched in. Atticus and Aunt Alexandra were delighted. I repeated my part for Calpurnia in the kitchen and she said I was wonderful. I wanted to go across the street to show Miss Maudie, but Jem said she'd probably be at the pageant anyway. After that, it didn't matter whether they went or not. Jem said he would take me. Thus began our longest journey together. 28 The weather was unusually warm for the last day of October. We didn't even need jackets. The wind was growing stronger, and Jem said it might be raining before we got home. There was no moon. The street light on the corner cast sharp shadows on the Radley house. I heard Jem laugh softly. "Bet nobody bothers them tonight," he said. Jem was carrying my ham costume, rather awkwardly, as it was hard to hold. I thought it gallant of him to do so. "It is a scary place though, ain't it?" I said. "Boo doesn't mean anybody any harm, but I'm right glad you're along." "You know Atticus wouldn't let you go to the schoolhouse by yourself," Jem said. "Don't see why, it's just around the corner and across the yard." "That yard's a mighty long place for little girls to cross at night," Jem teased. "Ain't you scared of haints?" We laughed. Haints, Hot Steams, incantations, secret signs, had vanished with our years as mist with sunrise. "What was that old thing," Jem said, "Angel bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don't suck my breath." "Cut it out, now," I said. We were in front of the Radley Place. Jem said, "Boo must not be at home. Listen." High above us in the darkness a solitary mocker poured out his repertoire in blissful unawareness of whose tree he sat in, plunging from the shrill kee, kee of the sunflower bird to the irascible qua-ack of a bluejay, to the sad lament of Poor Will, Poor Will, Poor Will. We turned the corner and I tripped on a root growing in the road. Jem tried to help me, but all he did was drop my costume in the dust. I didn't fall, though, and soon we were on our way again. We turned off the road and entered the schoolyard. It was pitch black. "How do you know where we're at, Jem?" I asked, when we had gone a few steps. "I can tell we're under the big oak because we're passin' through a cool spot. Careful now, and don't fall again." We had slowed to a cautious gait, and were feeling our way forward so as not to bump into the tree. The tree was a single and ancient oak;


if they have nothing else of value, they can always sell themselves. There is always someone willing to pay. I look at the lascivious glint in this guy’s eye, and I realize… it would only take a few minutes, it would help my money problems, maybe even allow me to fix my car. But I am not there. I pray I never will be. “Fuck off.” “Suit yourself.” He shrugs. “Just thought I’d offer.” Like he was doing me a favor. Pulling his hood down over his eyes, he saunters off down the alley, and I hustle toward my car. 4 MY EYES DART FROM THE darkened highway to the gas gauge as I drive north on I-5. This is farther than I’d normally travel, but my tank is almost half full. I’m headed for the tony seaside neighborhoods populated by tech entrepreneurs, doctors, and lawyers. I will be safe there—at least from the criminal element. The danger in this upper echelon is the private security guard, or the eager cop trying to impress the higher-ups. They can’t allow the disenfranchised to sleep in their cars among the mansions and pools and luxury SUVs. They won’t arrest me, though… will they? More likely, they’ll just ask me to move along, to park somewhere less desirable. I exit off the highway carefully, keeping well within the speed limit. My driver’s license is gone, so I don’t want to get pulled over for even a minor infraction. How will I replace it without my social security number? Or any proof of Washington residency? How will I even prove who I am? But I’m too exhausted to worry about it now. I drive toward the coast; I’ve always wanted an oceanfront home. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it will do. The area is unfamiliar, like the entire city, but I wind through quiet streets, the stately houses dark. It’s almost two in the morning and these professionals, these captains of industry, need their shut-eye. You can’t run the world unless you’re well-rested. The foliage is thick here, large trees and lush greenery concealing the residences. I keep driving and the homes dwindle as I move toward protected parkland. The road ends in a secluded pullout and it’s perfect, sheltered by giant cedars, surrounded by thorny blackberry bushes. In the daylight, I imagine a family parking here, picking their way through the thick brush to the rocky beach a few yards below. Parking the car, I move quietly to the trunk to collect my sleeping bag and my whisky. While I’m there, I stuff the remainder of the night’s tips—just eight bucks—into a paper sack I got with my day-old muffin. I will keep my cash in different locations, to foil any more thieves. But there won’t be random thugs roaming around in this neighborhood. Settling into the driver’s seat, I revel in a moment of peace and security. Why didn’t I think of this before? In each new town, I have gravitated toward others in my situation. The community of nomads


from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp. Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give. .. <p 54 > .. < chapter xii 21 BIOGRAPHICAL > Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are. When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins --royal stuff; though .. <p 55 > sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth. A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ringbolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces. In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage --this sea Prince of Wales, never saw the captain's cabin. They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content


about Gen- eral Washington and the wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says: "It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son. He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says: "What's this?" "It's something they give me for learning my lessons good." He tore it up, and says: "I'll give you something better -- I'll give you a cowhide. He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says: "AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor -- and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs -- they say you're rich. Hey? -- how's that?" "They lie -- that's how." "Looky here -- mind how you talk to me; I'm a- standing about all I can stand now -- so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money to-morrow -- I want it." "I hain't got no money." "It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it." "I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell you the same." "All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it." "I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to --" "It don't make no difference what you want it for -- you just shell it out." He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that. Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then he swore


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

“I’m surprisingly agile.” “I bet.” He gives me a very long once-over. “Does it give me an advantage with you that we frequent the same CVS?” “I don’t get to decide, remember?” He snaps his fingers. “Shoot. All right, well, I’m gonna get out of here.” With a sexy little wink, he turns and waves over his shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I watch Isaac until he’s out of sight, my pants still aflutter down below. “As a professional writer,” I mumble to his very nice retreating backside, “I must say I would absolutely verb the adjective noun out of him.” “Are you Felicity Chen?” My entire body jerks around at the voice to my left, where two older teen girls stand holding snacks and Red Bulls. I clutch my collection of wine to my chest, willing my heart to slow. I’ve been recognized before, but it’s usually in the context of something bookish, such as browsing in the aisles of my local indie, not when I’m dressed like a writer on imminent deadline and carrying enough wine for an entire football team. And then it occurs to me. Did they see me talking to myself? Do I look like a horny hobo? A more startling thought lands: Did they see me talking to Isaac? Shit. “That’s me!” I finally manage to say. They look at each other in shared excitement, then back to me, eyes sparkling with barely contained glee. “Oh my God,” they say in unison, and one adds a high-pitched “You were so good last night!” The girl who spoke is taller, with an emerald-green hijab and makeup so flawless that it transforms her black-and-white tracksuit and sneakers into high fashion. “Do you know if they’re going to make all the episodes available to stream?” she asks. “I’ve already watched the first one twice and might die if I have to wait a week.” “Just the one episode a week,” I say, not relishing being the person who pierces their joy bubble. “We’re shooting it as we go.” She groans playfully, but her friend in a UCSD sweatshirt pushes on. “I love your books and legit lost it when I saw you were doing this. I’ve read Base Paired four times.” Before I can say anything, she quickly adds, “Can we ask you something? I know you’re super busy.” “Was it the pajamas or the armload of canned rosé that gave away my hectic schedule? Go for it.” She laughs, turning her phone to face me, and points at the screen. “Do you know if this is Connor Prince’s Instagram?” * * * Connor comes up repeatedly that day: in the afternoon when my mom drags me along to H Mart and a woman recognizes me in the frozen food aisle, praising me for a moment before asking whether Connor has starred in anything else, and again in the evening, when another parent completely loses her mind in front of me and Jess at Juno’s ballet recital. Both times I find myself wanting to text him to gloat about


living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality. Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth. But when he was held, rootless, in mid-air, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn't something in that legend for us today, in this city, in our time, then I am completely insane. Well, there we have the first thing I said we needed. Quality, texture of information." "And the second?" "Leisure." "Oh, but we've plenty of off-hours." "Off-hours, yes. But time to think? If you're not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where you can't think of anything else but the danger, then you're playing some game or sitting in some room where you can't argue with the fourwall televisor. Why? The televisor is 'real.' It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be, right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!'" "Only the 'family' is 'people.'" "I beg your pardon?" "My wife says books aren't 'real.'" "Thank God for that. You can shut them, say, 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it. But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlour? It grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is the truth. Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge and scepticism, I have never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece symphony orchestra, full colour, three dimensions, and I being in and part of those incredible parlours. As you see, my parlour is nothing but four plaster walls. And here " He held out two small rubber plugs. "For my ears when I ride the subway-jets." "Denham's Dentifrice; they toil not, neither do they spin," said Montag, eyes shut. "Where do we go from here? Would books help us?" "Only if the third necessary thing could be given us. Number one, as I said, quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the inter-action of the first two. And I hardly think a very old man and a fireman turned sour could do much this late in the game..." "I can get books." "You're running a risk." "That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want." "There, you've said an interesting thing," laughed Faber, "without having read it!" "Are things like that in books. But it came off the


machine to a table laden with finished clothes that needed to be ironed. Aunty Caro stuck a pin in the check fabric. “She said that she saw you yesterday.” Ẹniọlá gripped the table with both hands. He looked straight at Aunty Caro and shook his head from side to side; her question had revealed the only answer that could get him out of this mess. If he acted as though he did not even know who Yèyé was, he could claim whatever she said about him was not true without saying one of Aunty Caro’s favourite clients was lying. He would say she must have been mistaken. “You know her, now,” Ṣèyí said, putting one hand on her hip. “How do you know that? Are you in my head?” Ẹniọlá picked up a blouse and began folding. “You need to iron that blouse first,” Maria said without looking up from the bùbá she was sewing. “And it’s not long since she left o,” Aunty Caro said. “Anyway, you must find a way to thank her. Maybe you will do that the next time she’s here. You know she just came this morning and said she wanted to pay your apprenticeship fee.” Ẹniọlá leaned against the table. “What?” “Àbí?” Maria said, slapping the back of one hand into the other palm. “It’s as if she dreamt about you, we had not even finished sweeping the shop before she came.” “She asked me about your parents and so on, and I explained that they’ve not been able to pay your fees here and she gave me the money.” “Just like that, cash.” Maria grinned at Ẹniọlá. “You are lucky o.” Ṣèyí scoffed. “That woman is just a cash madam. This Ẹniọlá is not lucky anything. When we were classmates—” “Ṣèyí, if I hear your voice again, you will go back home today, since you know how to sew a pleated skirt,” said Aunty Caro. “As for you, Ẹniọlá. You will have your own machine as from today. We’ll decide on which one once I’m done with this.” Ẹniọlá arranged his face into what he hoped resembled a smile. So Yèyé had not mentioned anything about the previous day. Maybe she was not upset and only felt sorry for him. He turned away from the women and dug through the pile of clothes for Aunty Caro’s ancient iron. He pulled it out and switched it on. He knew everyone expected him to be happy and grateful. This was a good thing. He now had the opportunity to truly learn tailoring instead of being an errand boy around the shop. Who knew, before the year ended, he might be able to sew dresses, jackets and agbádás from scratch. He touched the iron with a finger; it was still cold. The thing took forever to heat up. A smile or something like one stayed on his face, yet he felt no joy. He had to keep smiling. For Aunty Caro, who seemed so pleased for him, and Maria, who would not stop beaming in his direction. But


he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards every body, especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit him of that duty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an occasion of testifying his respect towards any body connected with the family.'' And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. -- Many stared. -- Many smiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his wife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly, and observed in a half-whisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably clever, good kind of young man. To Elizabeth it appeared, that had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit, or finer success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he must have witnessed. That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations was bad enough, and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable. The rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teazed by Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though he could not prevail with her to dance with him again, put it out of her power to dance with others. In vain did she entreat him to stand up with somebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room. He assured her that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it; that his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to her, and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her the whole evening. There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed her greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and good-naturedly engaged Mr. Collins's conversation to herself. She was at least free from the offence of Mr. Darcy's farther notice; though often standing within a very short distance of her, quite disengaged, he never came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the probable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in it. The Longbourn party were the last of all


"I don't," he smiled. "They think they'll drive me away from the studio; but they won't; I shall stay there just exactly as long as it suits me. All that this morning, it was Lucy Otter's doing, I know it was. She always has hated me. She thought after that I'd take myself off. I daresay she'd like me to go. She's afraid I know too much about her." Miss Price told him a long, involved story, which made out that Mrs. Otter, a humdrum and respectable little person, had scabrous intrigues. Then she talked of Ruth Chalice, the girl whom Foinet had praised that morning. "She's been with every one of the fellows at the studio. She's nothing better than a street-walker. And she's dirty. She hasn't had a bath for a month. I know it for a fact." Philip listened uncomfortably. He had heard already that various rumours were in circulation about Miss Chalice; but it was ridiculous to suppose that Mrs. Otter, living with her mother, was anything but rigidly virtuous. The woman walking by his side with her malignant lying positively horrified him. "I don't care what they say. I shall go on just the same. I know I've got it in me. I feel I'm an artist. I'd sooner kill myself than give it up. Oh, I shan't be the first they've all laughed at in the schools and then he's turned out the only genius of the lot. Art's the only thing I care for, I'm willing to give my whole life to it. It's only a question of sticking to it and pegging away" She found discreditable motives for everyone who would not take her at her own estimate of herself. She detested Clutton. She told Philip that his friend had no talent really; it was just flashy and superficial; he couldn't compose a figure to save his life. And Lawson: "Little beast, with his red hair and his freckles. He's so afraid of Foinet that he won't let him see his work. After all, I don't funk it, do I? I don't care what Foinet says to me, I know I'm a real artist." They reached the street in which she lived, and with a sigh of relief Philip left her. CHAPTER XLIV BUT notwithstanding when Miss Price on the following Sunday offered to take him to the Louvre Philip accepted. She showed him Mona Lisa. He looked at it with a slight feeling of disappointment, but he had read till he knew by heart the jewelled words with which Walter Pater has added beauty to the most famous picture in the world; and these now he repeated to Miss Price. "That's all literature," she said, a little contemptuously. "You must get away from that." She showed him the Rembrandts, and she said many appropriate things about them. She stood in front of the _Disciples at Emmaus_. "When you feel the beauty of that," she said, "you'll know something about painting." She showed him the _Odalisque_ and _La Source_ of Ingres. Fanny Price was


even insolence. It would provide a reason to give certain people their notice. “Have you considered a date, Madam?” asked Mrs. King, unruffled. It was already high season: Miss de Vries had missed the private view at the Royal Academy; she had no costume for Ascot Week. “Before the end of June. No later,” she said, knowing what a strain it would cause for the household. A ball was an entrance, an entrée: it had to be enormous, gargantuan, the best in the calendar. “I quite agree,” said Mrs. King, in an obliging tone. She took on the whole operation, almost as if it were of her own design, startling Miss de Vries with her efficiency. She worked up the menus and managed the worst negotiations with Cook. Ordered the flowers, new linens, fresh crystal ware, waiters, tents and tarpaulins, entertainments. Listed out the necessary staff: new house-parlormaids, daily women, even a sewing maid to help with the costume. Closed off half the rooms, opened up others, rearranged the furniture, clearing drawers, putting things in packing cases. “You can leave all that to the girls, Mrs. King,” Miss de Vries said, uneasily, seeing her rifling through one of the closets. “You shouldn’t exhaust yourself.” Mrs. King had given her a steady gaze. “I’m never exhausted, Madam,” she said. * * * It was Mr. Shepherd who brought the news. He’d come at dawn this morning, flustered, wearing an entirely disagreeable expression. “I thought I’d better tell you at once, Madam,” he said. “The lamp-boy caught Mrs. King entering the gentlemen’s quarters. We think she was planning an assignation.” Miss de Vries had dressed in deepest mourning, no jewels, her hair concealed beneath Chantilly lace. Entirely modest, virtuous. “Which footman?” she asked. He paused, just a half second. “William,” he said. “How disgusting,” Miss de Vries said, without emotion. “Do the other servants know?” “I fear they may, Madam.” “Then we need to set an example. She must leave today.” She could feel pleasure tingling in her veins. One by one, she thought. I’ll get them out one by one. Shepherd’s eyes flickered in their sockets. Ever since she’d left the schoolroom and Papa had given her charge of the housekeeping, Shepherd had been chasing her for decisions. Appointments, expenditures, complaints, approvals. He came through the door every hour, bringing cards, notes, tea, messages, deliveries. It was as if he had leashed himself to her leg, spying on her. Miss de Vries sometimes wondered what he would do if she lifted a hot poker from the hearth and pressed it to his skin. Would he sink to his knees, would he scream, would he beg her to do it again? These people, Papa’s people—Mrs. King, Mr. Shepherd, the lawyers, the rest—they simply wouldn’t do anymore. Of course Papa had done his best. Furnished her with nannies, ayahs, everything one could pay for. But that only took you so far in life. She wished to operate at the very top of the ladder, right up in the heavenly heights of society: among cabinet ministers,


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

of August he thought he'd better speak to his aunt and uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day, so he went down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and Dudley screamed and ran from the room. "Er -- Uncle Vernon?" Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening. "Er -- I need to be at King's Cross tomorrow to -- to go to Hogwarts." Uncle Vernon grunted again. "Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?" Grunt. Harry supposed that meant yes. "Thank you." He was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke. "Funny way to get to a wizards' school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?" Harry didn't say anything. "Where is this school, anyway?" "I don't know," said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket. "I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," he read. His aunt and uncle stared. "Platform what?" "Nine and three-quarters." "Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters." "It's on my ticket." "Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "howling mad, the lot of them. You'll see. You just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother." "Why are you going to London?" Harry asked, trying to keep things friendly. "Taking Dudley to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings." *** Harry woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn't want to walk into the station in his wizard's robes -- he'd change on the train. He checked his Hogwarts list yet again to make sure he had everything he needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, Harry's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Aunt Petunia had talked Dudley into sitting next to Harry, and they had set off. They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him. Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face. "Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine -- platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?" He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all. "Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl. Chapter 2 Uncle Charles smoked such black twist that at last his nephew suggested to him to enjoy his morning smoke in a little outhouse at the end of the garden. --Very good, Simon. All serene, Simon, said the old man tranquilly. Anywhere you like. The outhouse will do me nicely: it will be more salubrious. --Damn me, said Mr Dedalus frankly, if I know how you can smoke such villainous awful tobacco. It's like gunpowder, by God. --It's very nice, Simon, replied the old man. Very cool and mollifying. Every morning, therefore, uncle Charles repaired to his outhouse but not before he had greased and brushed scrupulously his back hair and brushed and put on his tall hat. While he smoked the brim of his tall hat and the bowl of his pipe were just visible beyond the jambs of the outhouse door. His arbour, as he called the reeking outhouse which he shared with the cat and the garden tools, served him also as a sounding-box: and every morning he hummed contentedly one of his favourite songs: O, TWINE ME A BOWER or BLUE EYES AND GOLDEN HAIR or THE GROVES OF BLARNEY while the grey and blue coils of smoke rose slowly from his pipe and vanished in the pure air. During the first part of the summer in Blackrock uncle Charles was Stephen's constant companion. Uncle Charles was a hale old man with a well tanned skin, rugged features and white side whiskers. On week days he did messages between the house in Carysfort Avenue and those shops in the main street of the town with which the family dealt. Stephen was glad to go with him on these errands for uncle Charles helped him very liberally to handfuls of whatever was exposed in open boxes and barrels outside the counter. He would seize a handful of grapes and sawdust or three or four American apples and thrust them generously into his grandnephew's hand while the shopman smiled uneasily; and, on Stephen's feigning reluctance to take them, he would frown and say: --Take them, sir. Do you hear me, sir? They're good for your bowels. When the order list had been booked the two would go on to the park where an old friend of Stephen's father, Mike Flynn, would be found seated on a bench, waiting for them. Then would begin Stephen's run round the park. Mike Flynn would stand at the gate near the railway station, watch in hand, while Stephen ran round the track in the style Mike Flynn favoured, his head high lifted, his knees well lifted and his hands held straight down by his sides. When the morning practice was over the trainer would make his comments and sometimes illustrate them by shuffling along for a yard or so comically


and never mentioned me. Even worse, he and Annabel Lily were photographed hanging out together on two separate occasions. One afternoon, they went window-shopping in SoHo, and the next day, they had dinner at a sushi restaurant in the East Village. That night, he was seen leaving her apartment around 11 p.m. It was Henrietta who alerted me, texting after the first round of photos showed up online, What are they thinking???? And then, as if I didn’t understand, Poor Danny!!! I masochistically continued to google Noah for a few weeks, and there wasn’t any more documentation of him with Annabel. Though the photos had been accompanied by disavowals from unnamed sources, meaning their publicists (“Noah and Annabel are just old friends”), another diner at the Japanese restaurant had noted their “flirty vibe” (“They were really enjoying each other”), and the episodes seemed patently staged. I mean, window-shopping—did anyone do that in real life? And for fuck’s sake, just get takeout sushi! But I couldn’t have said if album promotion was the point and cruelty was the byproduct or if exploring a sincere attraction was the point and album promotion was the byproduct. The fourth thing that happened was that Viv and Dr. Theo became a real couple, a long-term couple, though, as she told me later, they didn’t have sex that first night. They did go home together, and they did sleep in the same bed, but they actually slept, after what Viv jokingly but ecstatically described as heavy petting. It was with Viv and Dr. Theo that I’d left the after-after-party not long after Noah’s departure. We all climbed into the second row of the Escalade, with Viv in the middle, and as I fastened my seat belt, I leaned forward and said to Dr. Theo, “How are you holding up?” “Not sure I’ve been awake at this time since I was a resident, but I’m hanging in there.” Viv said, “Should we pop into Bellevue and you can deliver a baby for old times’ sake?” “I’ll take a rain check on that.” The driver pulled into the street, and less than a minute had passed when I heard a rhythmic breathing, a quieter sound than snoring, and when I leaned forward again, I saw that Dr. Theo had fallen asleep. Viv and I made eye contact, and she smiled. “I like him,” I half whispered and half mouthed. “I do, too,” she whispered back. “You know the Danny Horst Rule?” I said quietly. “Do you believe it?” “No,” she said immediately. “Really?” “For sure our culture is obsessed with how women look, and we’ve all been infected. But at the individual level, people are way freakier than we acknowledge. Attraction has to do with so many things besides appearance.” After a pause—we were headed up FDR Drive, nearly empty at this hour, riding alongside the dark swath of the East River, beyond which the lights of Brooklyn were visible—Viv said, “Would you rather marry Danny or Annabel?” “Definitely Danny,” I said. “Right? Because hot eventually gets boring, but funny


made itself at home. Upon receiving my diagnosis, I tutted a bit, panicked a bit, made several emergency cups of tea, and finally decided I’d better stick the whole thing in a book. Which brings me to the first person I’d like to thank: Bradley Graeme, the hero of this novel, who’s been dealing with OCD for years and is enviably sensible about it. I have no idea if I’ll ever be as good at coping as Brad is, but I do know that writing him inspired me to take better care of myself. So…cheers, mate. Couldn’t have done it without you. I also couldn’t have done this without the help of numerous real people. Thank you to my mother for steering me through the angsty Celine years and giving me a name to be proud of; to my baby sisters, Truly and Jade, for being delightful pudding cups; to my best friend, Cairo Aibangbee, for supporting me through multiple creative breakdowns and assuring me that I did in fact still know how to write and had not actually lost my grasp of the English language. Thank you to Chessie Penniston-Hill for her creative (and teenage) perspective, to Aaliyah Hibbert and Orla Wain for helping me to seem Young and Hip, and to Adjani Salmon for answering my emergency spelling questions. Thank you to the wonderful authors and literal inspirations (I know, but seriously, it’s true) I’ve had the privilege of befriending since my career began. Therese Beharrie, Kennedy Ryan, Dylan Allen, Ali Williams, and so many more—your books, your kindness, your friendship, and your invaluable advice get me through every single project. I am so lucky to know you. Many thanks to my incredible agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, for always having my back, finding solutions, and reducing my professional anxiety by a solid 90 percent just by existing. (You exist in a very badass manner.) Thank you also to the whole team at Joy Revolution who worked to make this story happen. Nicola and David Yoon, Bria Ragin, Wendy Loggia, Beverly Horowitz, Barbara Marcus, Casey Moses, Mlle Belamour, Ken Crossland, Lili Feinberg, Colleen Fellingham, Tamar Schwartz, Jillian Vandall, Adrienne Waintraub, Katie Halata, Shameiza Ally, Elizabeth Ward, Caitlin Whalen, and so many others, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to such an exciting mission and for having a truly beautiful book to show for it. Thank you to the good people of Nottinghamshire and of the Trossachs for kindly not pointing out the enormous liberties I have taken with the geographical realities of Sherwood Forest and Glen Finglas (there: now that I’ve said that, you can’t complain or you’ll seem awfully graceless). And finally, thank you to my fiancé for…well, where to start? For driving me six hours to camp at Glen Finglas in your crumbling Volvo, and for promptly transferring us to a hotel when it turned out camping really did not agree with me. For lending me entire portions of your countryside childhood, including that time you did a Bradley (although it would be more accurate to say that


space was taken up with food and equipment, forcing many children to undergo one of the toughest treks in the history of humankind. Though these children weren’t adapted to the cold on a genetic level, they’d been born on the ice, and they were experts in the snow. At school they’d been taught survival skills by the Inuit tribes, developing an intuition for the cold and hardiness far beyond their years. Despite having lost his beloved kitchen, Chang-Rae remained upbeat. An indefatigable spirit, he’d lost everything before, he could build his kitchen again, and he was excited to see what new foods and flavours he could find on the Peninsula. Addressing Yotam, he said: ‘You know what this means, right?’ ‘What does this mean?’ ‘You can date.’ ‘I thought you were going to say something profound.’ ‘That is important! You don’t have any work. You’ve got more time on your hands.’ ‘We’re trekking across the continent—’ ‘There’s always an excuse. But this time there’s no excuse. You can’t hide from this part of your life anymore. Those creatures you made, and fell in love with, that relationship wasn’t real.’ ‘It was real to me.’ ‘Okay, I can see that, but when one relationship doesn’t work you have to move on. I’ve told you a thousand times: the only way to survive on this continent is to find someone to love.’ He turned to his wife. ‘Isn’t that right, the love of my life?’ ‘My feet are cold.’ ‘Your feet are always cold. They’re cold when we’re inside. They’re cold when we’re outside. You have cold feet. Let’s never mention it again.’ Chang-Rae turned back to Yotam, wrapping an arm around him. ‘I have someone in mind.’ ‘For me?’ ‘For you.’ ‘You’re doing this now?’ ‘Right now. You’ve waited long enough.’ Chang-Rae handed the sleigh reins to his wife and hurried off down the caravan. Sheepish, Yotam looked at his wife. She asked him: ‘Will they come for us?’ ‘Not while we walk.’ ‘When we arrive?’ ‘I don’t know. I thought I knew them. But I don’t.’ Chang-Rae returned with a handsome man in his forties. ‘This is my friend. Hyan-Woo. He was a big-shot music executive back in the day. He saved my life. It was his father’s ship I hitched a ride on. Before the occupation he used to eat in my restaurant. Excellent taste. He was never out as gay in Korea—’ Hyan-Woo interrupted: ‘Can I introduce myself?’ ‘Introductions are always much better done by someone else. Like I was saying, I always knew he was gay.’ ‘How could you have known? I didn’t know.’ The two of them slipped back into Korean, speaking animatedly for a time, debating this subject before Chang-Rae turned to Yotam, using English again. ‘I knew. I mean, it’s so easy to know in a restaurant. All you do is see which waiters people talk to the most. It was the cute guys, always the cute guys.’ ‘You’re embarrassing me.’ ‘Why is that embarrassing? He didn’t come out until his third year in Antarctica. He


which Providence so manifestly held out. He listened in silence, and finally promised to confer with the physician. Thesaurus countenanced: (adj) aided. interposition: (adj, n) mediation; (adj) parishioner: (n) layman, parishen, despondent: (adj) desperate, dejected, intercession; (n) intervention, catechumen, churchgoer, church depressed, hopeless, disappointed, interpolation, insertion, interruption, member. desolate, gloomy, downcast, intermediation, interjection, location, providential: (adj) lucky, happy, downhearted, forlorn, low. locating, placement. divine, fortuitous, opportune, ANTONYMS: (adj) hopeful, cheerful, opportune: (adj, v) appropriate; (adj) miraculous, favorable, blessed, optimistic, joyful, elated, euphoric. favorable, apropos, auspicious, seasonable; (adj, v) auspicious; (v) importunate: (adj) annoying, exigent, expedient, happy, handy, timely, propitious. ANTONYM: (adj) pressing, insistent, bothersome, felicitous, favourable; (v) becoming. unfortunate. pestiferous, pestilent, instant, ANTONYMS: (adj) untimely, transporting: (adj) ecstatic, rapturous, obdurate, demanding, pleading. disadvantageous, inappropriate, rapturous applause, ravishing, ANTONYM: (adj) feeble. inconvenient, unfortunate, unlucky. transportant. Nathaniel Hawthorne 115 "Were it God's will," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, when, in fulfilment of this pledge, he requested old Roger Chillingworth's professional advice, "I could be well content that my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proof in my behalf." "Ah," replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness, which, whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, "it is thus that a young clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily! And saintly men, who walk with God on earth, would fain be away, to walk with him on the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem." "Nay," rejoined the young minister, putting his hand to his heart, with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, "were I worthier to walk there, I could be better content to toil here." "Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly," said the physician.% In this manner, the mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became the medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. As not only the disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient, these two men, so different in age, came gradually to spend much time together. For the sake of the minister's health, and to enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them, they took long walks on the sea-shore, or in the forest; mingling various walks with the splash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem among the tree-tops. Often, likewise, one was the guest of the other in his place of study and retirement There was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of science, in whom he recognised an intellectual cultivation of no moderate depth or scope; together with a range and freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly looked for among the members of his own profession. In truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this attribute in the physician.


so strongly as George. The boat sped along rocking smoothly. They went right round the island, and saw the castle from the other side. It looked more ruined on the side that faced the sea. "The strong winds come from the open sea," explained George. "There's not really much left of it this side, except piles of stones. But there's a good little harbour in a little cove, for those who know how to find it." George took the oars after a while, and rowed steadily out a little beyond the island. Then she stopped and looked back towards the shore. "How do you know when you are over the wreck?" asked Julian, puzzled. "I should never know!" "Well, do you see that church tower on the mainland?" asked George. "And do you see the tip of that hill over there? Well, when you get them exactly in line with one another, between the two towers of the castle on the island, you are pretty well over the wreck! I found that out ages ago." The children saw that the tip of the far-off hill and the church tower were practically in line, when they looked at them between the two old towers of the island castle. They looked eagerly down into the sea to see if they could spy the wreck. The water was perfectly clear and smooth. There was hardly a wrinkle. Timothy looked down into it too, his head on one side, his ears cocked, just as if he knew what he was looking for! The children laughed at him. "We're not exactly over it," said George, looking down too. "The water's so clear today that we should be able to see quite a long way down. Wait, I'll row a bit to the left." "Woof!" said Timothy, suddenly, and wagged his tail- and at the same moment the three children saw something deep down in the water! "It's the wreck!" said Julian, almost falling out of the boat in his excitement. "I can see a bit of broken mast. Look, Dick, look!" All four children and the dog, too, gazed down earnestly into the clear water. After a little while they could make out the outlines of a dark hulk, out of which the broken mast stood. "It's a bit on one side," said Julian. "Poor old ship. How it must hate lying there, gradually falling to pieces. George, I wish I could dive down and get a closer look at it." "Well, why don't you?" said George. "You've got your swimming trunks on. I've often dived down. I'll come with you, if you like, if Dick can keep the boat round about here. There's a current that is trying to take it out to sea. Dick, you'll have to keep working a bit with this oar to keep the boat in one spot." The girl stripped off her jeans and jersey and Julian did the same. They both had on bathing costumes underneath. George took a beautiful header off the end of the boat, deep down into


more, as it inspired her with energy to get some breakfast, at which, still the better to keep up her courage, she allowed herself an extra spoonful in her infusion of black tea. Her introductory day of shop-keeping did not run on, however, without many and serious interruptions of this mood of cheerful vigor. As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers. In the case of our old gentlewoman, after the excitement of new effort had subsided, the despondency of her whole life threatened, ever and anon, to return. It was like the heavy mass of clouds which we may often see obscuring the sky, and making a gray twilight everywhere, until, towards nightfall, it yields temporarily to a glimpse of sunshine. But, always, the envious cloud strives to gather again across the streak of celestial azure. Customers came in, as the forenoon advanced, but rather slowly; in some cases, too, it must be owned, with little satisfaction either to themselves or Miss Hepzibah; nor, on the whole, with an aggregate of very rich emolument to the till. A little girl, sent by her mother to match a skein of cotton thread, of a peculiar hue, took one that the near-sighted old lady pronounced extremely like, but soon came running back, with a blunt and cross message, that it would not do, and, besides, was very rotten! Then, there was a pale, care-wrinkled woman, not old but haggard, and already with streaks of gray among her hair, like silver ribbons; one of those women, naturally delicate, whom you at once recognize as worn to death by a brute--probably a drunken brute--of a husband, and at least nine children. She wanted a few pounds of flour, and offered the money, which the decayed gentlewoman silently rejected, and gave the poor soul better measure than if she had taken it. Shortly afterwards, a man in a blue cotton frock, much soiled, came in and bought a pipe, filling the whole shop, meanwhile, with the hot odor of strong drink, not only exhaled in the torrid atmosphere of his breath, but oozing out of his entire system, like an inflammable gas. It was impressed on Hepzibah's mind that this was the husband of the care-wrinkled woman. He asked for a paper of tobacco; and as she had neglected to provide herself with the article, her brutal customer dashed down his newly-bought pipe and left the shop, muttering some unintelligible words, which had the tone and bitterness of a curse. Hereupon Hepzibah threw up her eyes, unintentionally scowling in the face of Providence! No less than five persons, during the forenoon, inquired for ginger-beer, or root-beer, or any drink of a similar brewage, and, obtaining nothing of the kind, went off in an exceedingly bad humor. Three of them left the door open, and the other two pulled it so spitefully in going out that the little bell played the very deuce with Hepzibah's


a wink,” she said. “It’s far too hot.” She pointed at Winnie. “You’re the one who needs her beauty sleep.” I won’t rise to that, Winnie thought. “Remember, Hephzibah, you’ve got to roll in to the ball early, to keep an eye on the arrivals and get Miss de Vries moving.” “Shall I be given supper?” Winnie sighed. “If you make enough of a fuss, I suppose. Introduce her to Mrs. Bone’s men, make sure Miss de Vries thinks they’re Buckingham Palace policemen, and then get to work upstairs.” Hephzibah frowned. “Can’t you make this thing go any faster, girls?” The Janes thumped the pedals, and the boat roared ahead, churning the water. Winnie could see other boaters looking around in displeasure, rocking on the waves. The motion was making her feel queasy. She tapped Alice’s arm. “Parker. You’ll head upstairs to sew Miss de Vries into her costume. Take your time about it. You want her strained, harassed, and running late.” Alice looked troubled, running her hand through the murky water. “I can’t force her to do anything.” Mrs. King smiled into the distance. “You’ll be fine.” And that was all. How did she do it? Winnie wondered. How could she be so smooth, so certain? Winnie had to clench and unclench her hands when she spoke, consulting her notes. But Mrs. King was different. She held the vision in her head. Look in her eyes long enough and you began to see it yourself, lights glinting in the dark. Mrs. Bone said, wrinkling her brow, “Now listen. I’ve been looking at our crates. You need to do something about them. They’re so heavy they’ll make the whole house shake when you winch them down.” “We’ve oiled the pulley,” said Jane-one. Jane-two nodded. “And we’ll have mats on the floor, to take the landing. We’ve measured everything, even Madam’s bed.” “Hmm,” said Mrs. Bone. “If you say so, my Janes.” Winnie wished she had the knack for convincing Mrs. Bone of something so easily. “Her bed?” said Alice, looking worried. “Do you plan to take her with you, while she’s sleeping?” Jane-one sniffed. “As long as we’re very careful with the angles, as long as we can get it hooked up nice and easy, and it doesn’t swing too much...” Alice scrutinized Mrs. King. “You’re not serious.” “I’m finding this very dull,” muttered Hephzibah, lowering her parasol. “Hephzibah, please,” said Winnie. Alice raised her voice. “Dinah...” “Not Dinah,” Mrs. King replied. “Mrs. King. Unless you’re going to gag Madam with chloroform or tie her up or sell her to a kidnapper for ransom, that won’t work. She’ll catch us, she’ll see everything, she’ll know exactly what’s going on.” Winnie studied Alice with concern. The girl had gone pink in the cheeks, speaking so boldly. But Mrs. King was unruffled. “Of course she’ll catch us.” Alice paled. “What on earth do you mean?” Mrs. King tilted her face to the sun, tipping the brim of her hat. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,” said Mrs. Bone. “It’s all happening tomorrow,