 |
Free US/UK Kindle
Classic
Howells on the left . . . |
Or
is it 1998?
It
was their first summer at Middlemount and the Landers did not know the roads.
When they came to a place where they had a choice of two, she said that now he
must get out of the carry-all and ask at the house standing a little back in
the edge of the pine woods, which road they ought to take for South
Middlemount. She alleged many cases in which they had met trouble through his
perverse reluctance to find out where they were before he pushed rashly forward
in their drives. Whilst she urged the facts she reached forward from the back
seat where she sat, and held her hand upon the reins to prevent his starting
the horse, which was impartially cropping first the sweet fern on one side and
then the blueberry bushes on the other side of the narrow wheel-track. She
declared at last that if he would not get out and ask she would do it herself,
and at this the dry little man jerked the reins in spite of her, and the horse
suddenly pulled the carry-all to the right, and seemed about to overset it.
"Oh,
what are you doing, Albe't?" Mrs. Lander lamented, falling helpless
against the back of her seat. "Haven't I always told you to speak to the
hoss fust?"
"He
wouldn't have minded my speakin'," said her husband. "I'm goin' to
take you up to the dooa so that you can ask for youaself without gettin'
out."
Well, not 1998 because they
are in a carriage, but certainly a modern debate as to which gender will or
will not ask directions!You can see the novel is not for those who abhor dialect.
Here is a young college student working his way through school at a hotel. He says he is not interested in girls.
Gregory
had an habitual severity with his own behavior which did not stop there, but
was always passing on to the behavior of others; and his days went by in alternate
offence and reparation to those he had to do with. He had to do chiefly with
the dining-room girls, whose susceptibilities were such that they kept about
their work bathed in tears or suffused with anger much of the time. He was not
only good-looking but he was a college student, and their feelings were ready
to bud toward him in tender efflorescence, but he kept them cropped and
blighted by his curt words and impatient manner. Some of them loved him for the
hurts he did them, and some hated him, but all agreed fondly or furiously that
he was too cross for anything. They were mostly young school-mistresses, and
whether they were of a soft and amorous make, or of a forbidding temper, they
knew enough in spite of their hurts to value a young fellow whose thoughts were
not running upon girls all the time. Women, even in their spring-time, like men
to treat them as if they had souls as well as hearts, and it was a saving grace
in Gregory that he treated them all, the silliest of them, as if they had souls.
I think it is safe to say
this is a romantic novel.
For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to
this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. (It is one of the top 100 blogs on
Amazon.)This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books
directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then
transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.
UK
readers may go to this
Amazon link to subscribe. (Slightly more than half my readers are
from the UK)
US
readers may go to this Amazon
link
Here
is a video of my mother,
at 97, a new convert to the Kindle!
Thank
to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it
online. I love to get good reviews! Who wouldn't? Should you
care to leave a review, follow these links for UK
readers or US
readers. You may e-mail me at marilyn@marilynlitt.com
