Mr. Tommy Dove and other stories
Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, May 14, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 Excerpt: ...abruptly. "Good-night," she said, and a moment later they heard her light step on the stairs. Her mother and aunt looked at each other. "I believe they have quarreled, Susy. Why, she did n't kiss us good-night," said Mrs. Sayre, in rather an awed voice. Elizabeth, in the darkness of her bedroom, stood still in the middle of the floor, her fingers pressed hard upon her eyes; her heart beating so that she could hardly breathe. The white crepe shawl slipped from her shoulders, and fell like a curve of foam about her feet. The light from the street-lamp, which flared in an iron bracket on the corner of No. 16, traveled across the worn carpet, and showed the spare, old-fashioned furnishing of the room; it struck a faint sparkle from the misty surface of the old mirror, and it gleamed along the edge of a little gilt photograph frame that was standing on the dressing-table. Elizabeth, shivering a little, the soft color deepening in her cheeks, and her eyelashes glittering with tears, saw the flickering gleam, and, with a sudden impulse, lifted the photograph, holding it close to her eyes and staring at it in the darkness. But the light from the lamp in the court was too faint to show the face. With an unsteady hand she struck a match and lit her candle. She had forgotten to take off her bonnet; she stood, the light flaring up into her face, looking with blurred eyes at Alice's picture. At last, with a long sigh, she kissed it gently and put it again on the table. Then she sat down on the edge of her bed, staring straight before her at the candle, burning steadily in the hot, still night; her hands were clasped tightly upon her knees. It was long after that--it must have been nearly midnight--that Mrs. Sayre heard a step in her bedroom, and said...