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ONE:Mrs Keeling had much enjoyed the sense of added pomp and dignity which her husbands mayoralty gave her. She liked seeing placards in the streets that a concert in aid of some charity was given under the patronage of the Lady Mayoress, and would rustle into the arm-chair reserved for her in the middle of the front-row with the feeling that she had got this concert up, and was responsible not only for the assistance it gave to the charity in question, but for the excellence of the performance. She assumed a grander and more condescending air at her parties, and distinctly began to unbend to the inhabitants of Alfred Road instead of associating with them as equals. She knew her position as Lady Mayoress; it almost seemed to her that it was she who had raised her husband to the civic dignity, and when one morning she found among her letters an invitation from Lady Inverbroom for herself and him to dine and sleep one day early in December, at their place a few miles outside Bracebridge, she was easily able to see through the insincerity of Lady Inverbrooms adding that it would give her husband such pleasure to show Mr Keeling his library. It was an amiable insincerity, but{164} Emmeline was secretly sure that the Lady Mayoress was the desired guest. She tried without success to control the trembling of her voice when she telephoned to Keelingwho had just left for the Stores (those vulgar stores)the gratifying request. He was quite pleased to accept it, but she could detect no trembling in his voice. But men controlled their feelings better than women....Ah, that had not occurred to me, said Keeling. TWO:"The first kite I saw in the air in Japan was so much like a large bird[Pg 265] that I mistook it for one, and the delusion was kept up by a smaller one that seemed to be getting away from the other. The large one imitated the movements of a hawk to perfection, and it was some minutes before I could understand that it was nothing but a combination of sticks and paper and cords, instead of a real live bird. It rose and fell, and every few moments it swept down and seemed to be trying to swallow the little one out of sight. I never should have supposed such an imitation possible, and was thoroughly convinced that the Japanese must be very fond of kite-flying if they give it the study necessary to bring it to such a state of perfection.
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ONE: TWO:"It's our old friend, the Mystery!"
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ONE:The Doctor, in establishing himself in the right quarter, had forgotten to allow for the fact that the force that had lifted the Paynes out of their urban obscurity had descended to their daughter. Lilian had been expensively educated, and although the Doctor denied it[Pg 124] to himself a hundred times a week, there was no evading the fact that an acute brain slumbered behind her rather immobile beauty. True, the fruits of her learning languished a little in Great Wymering, and that beyond a slight permanent frown and a disposition to argue about modern problems, she betrayed no revolt against the narrowness of her existence, but appeared, graceful and willowy, at garden parties or whist drives. It was the development of her mind that the Doctor feared, especially as, all unconsciously at first, he had acted as its chief stimulant. During their talks together he had spoken too many a true word in jest; and his witticisms had revealed to Lilian a whole world about which to think and theorise.A JAPANESE TEMPLE. A JAPANESE TEMPLE. TWO:I waited on. So absorbed was I that I did not hear the coming of a horseman in the fields beyond the grove, nor the click of a field gate; but when the strange quietude of Ferry and the dogs had begun to reassure me I became aware of this new-comer approaching the dooryard. There he reined in and hallooed. I knew the voice. An answer came from an upper window. "Is this Squire Wall's?" asked the traveller. "Well, Squire, I'm from General Austin's headquarters, with orders to Captain Ferry."The Doctor paused in his walk. How strange that Lilian should say that! It almost seemed as though she must have heard about the Clockwork man!
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ONE:Then shall I go down to your house now, and get on with my business? she said. TWO:Yes, I see, he said. What do you charge for it?
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ONE:All the while that I recount these scenes there come to me soft orchestrations of the old tunes that belonged with them. I am thinking of one just now; a mere potsherd of plantation-fiddler's folk-music which I heard first--and last--in the dance at Gilmer's. Indeed no other so widely recalls to me those whole years of disaster and chaos; the daily shock of their news, crashing in upon the brain like a shell into a roof; wail and huzza, camp-fire, litter and grave; battlefield stench; fiddle and flame; and ever in the midst these impromptu merrymakings to keep us from going stark mad, one and all,--as so many literally did.But the other jerked his thumb toward the half-closed parlor, where Miss Harper and Ccile sat close, to each other absorbed in some matter of the tenderest privacy. "They'll attend to that," he muttered; "come on to bed and mind your own business." TWO:They made a wide circuit round that windy home of melody.Total height of statue, 53 feet 6 inches; width across shoulders, 29 feet; length of face, 16 feet; width of face, 9 feet 6 inches. It is said to weigh four hundred and fifty tons, and to be made of a bronze composed of gold, mercury, tin, and copper. The head is covered with curls, also of bronze, and there are said to be 966 of them; then there is a halo around the head 78 feet in diameter, and supporting 16 images, each one 8 feet long. The statue is in a squatting posture, like the one at Kamakura, and is covered with a building so small that it is impossible to obtain a good view in consequence of being too near the figure. The expression of the features is not at all equal to that of the great Dai-Boots at Kamakura, and the whole design is far less artistic. But it is the second in the empire in size, and for that reason is worthy of notice as well as for its antiquity.
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