Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Purple Cloud by M. P. (Matthew Phipps) Shiel
page 266 of 341 (78%)
when she is just ready to cry.

In a few strokes I drew the palace, and herself standing at the portal
between the pillars: and now great was her satisfaction, for she pointed
to the sketched figure, and to herself, interrogatively: and when I
nodded 'yes,' she went cooing her fond murmurous laugh, with pressed
and mincing lips: and it is clear that, in spite of my beatings, she is
in no way afraid of me.

Before I could move away, I felt some rain-drops, and down in some
seconds rushed a shower. I looked, saw that the sky was rapidly
darkening, and ran into the nearest of the little cubical houses,
leaving her glancing sideways upward, with the quaintest artlessness of
interest in the downpour: for she is not yet quite familiarised with the
operations of nature, and seems to regard them with a certain amiable
inquisitive seriousness, as though they were living beings, comrades as
good as herself. She presently joined me, but even then stretched her
hand out to feel the drops.

Now there came a thunder-clap, the wind was rising, and rain spattering
about me: for the panes of these houses, made, I believe, of paper
saturated in almond-oil, have long disappeared, and rains, penetrating
by roof and rare window, splash the bones of men. I gathered up my
skirts to run toward other shelter, but she was before me, saying in her
strange experimental voice that word of hers: "_Come_."

She ran in advance, and I, with the outer robe over my head, followed,
urging flinching way against the whipped rain-wash. She took the way by
the stone horse-pond, through an alley to the left between two blind
walls, then down a steep path through wood to the rock-steps, and up we
DigitalOcean Referral Badge