Days Like These; A Novel

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI THE MOTHER OF THE TWINS SERVES TEA THE outside green blinds of the room into which Maxwell was thus informally ushered were closed, but some of their slats were missing, admitting a half- light. Near the window, as if needing all the light she dared to admit while the sun still hot-blasted the air, one woman sat bending over some sewing. At a table which stood between the sewing woman and a cook-stove, piped into what had once been an open fireplace, another woman was pouring tea. Both started when they saw the group at the door?the woman by the window with evident nervousness; the other with an emotion to which she gave prompt expression. You Hugh-Timothy! she exclaimed. Have you no more manners than to be running after the gentleman as has come to call on Mrs. Cavendish? I'll break your face, dearies, and you don't behave and get out of here! As the dear dead poet says, ' Stand not/ he says, ' Stand not upon the order of your going, but chase yourselves, for evermore/ says he. Mrs. Cassidy, for it was she, addressed her twins as one person, and instead of looking as fierce as her language, had a smile of grim good-nature. They are not to blame, said Maxwell, they have guided me here at my request, and, I think, have earned five cents each. The twins came to a point, received each his pilot fee, disappeared, and seemed instantlv to fall down-stairs in a clinch, and with sullen roar of battle; whereat Mrs. Cassidy smiled indulgently. Then this is Mrs. Cavendish, Maxwell said, turning to the other woman, who had left her chair, and placed her sewing on a bureau which stood between the two windows. Yes, sir, she answered. You are Mr. Maxwell, I suppose. I did not expect you until six o'clock, when my daughter will be home from work. ...