【视频】kcb259这是唯一的公众号！-段兵娥22 √注意，请加我的唯一账号kcb259点这里添加老师私人号，长按图片识别二维码kcb259点这里添加老师私人号以下内容与原文无关可选择阅读原创凡治气养心之术,莫径由礼盗石可裂不可卷,义士可杀不可羞kcb259点这里添加老师私人号Determined to think of him no more蒋晓松 , she rang for her maid and ordered dinner. Then, book in hand, she went

【视频】kcb259这是唯一的公众号！-段兵娥22

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kcb259点这里添加老师私人号

以下内容与原文无关可选择阅读
原创凡治气养心之术,莫径由礼
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Determined to think of him no more蒋晓松 , she rang for her maid and ordered dinner. Then, book in hand, she went down stairs. Mr. Van Duyn, she was relieved to think, had departed with Mrs. Loring, and she smiled almost gaily at the thought that this evening at least was her own. As she passed into the library, she saw that a bright light was burning in her father’s study, and she peeped in at the door.
It was not a large room, the smallest one, in fact, upon the lower floor, but unlike most of the other rooms, it had a distinct personality. The furniture—chairs, desks, and bookcases—was massive, almost too heavy to make for architectural accordance, and this defect was made more conspicuous by the delicacy and minuteness of the ornaments. There were two glass cases on a heavy table filled with the most exquisite ivories, most of them Japanese, an Ormolu case with a glass top enclosing snuff-boxes and miniatures. Three Tanagra figures graced one bookcase and upon another were several microscopes of different sizes. The pictures on the walls, each of them furnished with a light-reflector储世新, were small with elaborately carved gold frames—a few of them landscapes, but most of them “genre” paintings, with many small figures.
Before one discovered the owner of this room one would have decided at once that he must be smallish, slender, with stooping shoulders, gold-rimmed eye-glasses, a jeweled watch-fob and, perhaps, a squint; and the massive appearance of the present occupant would have occasioned more than a slight shock of surprise. When[103] Jane looked in, Henry K. Loring sat on the very edge of a wide arm chair, with a magnifying glass in his hand carefully examining a small oil painting which was propped up under a reading light on another chair in front of him. People who knew him only in his business capacity might have been surprised at his quiet and critical delight in this studious occupation, for down town he was best known by a brisk and summary manner, a belligerent presence and a strident voice which smacked of the open air. His bull-like neck was set deep in his wide shoulders as his keen eyes peered under their bushy eyebrows at the object in front of him. He was so absorbed that he did not hear the light patter of his daughter’s footsteps, and did not move until he heard the sound of her voice.
“Well, Daddy!” she said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
His round head turned slowly as though on a pivot.
“Hello, Jane! Feeling better?” He raised his chin and winked one eye expressively.
“I thought you were going—with Mother,” said Miss Loring.
“Lord, no! You know I—” and he laughed. “I had a headache, too.”
The girl smiled guiltily, but she came over and sat upon the arm of the chair,珂兰葵尔瑞 and laid her hand along her father’s shoulder.
“Another picture! Oh, Daddy, such extravagance! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? So that’s why you stole away from the Dorsey-Martin’s——”
“It’s another Verbeckhoeven, Jane,” he chuckled delightedly. “A perfect wonder! The best he ever did, I’m sure! Come, sit down here and look at it.”
Jane sank to the floor in front of the painting and[104] reached for the enlarging glass. But he held it away from her.
“No重生之仙欲 , no,” he insisted. “Wait, first tell me how many things you can see with the naked eye.”
“A horse, a cow, a man lying on the grass, trees, distant haystacks and a windmill,” she said slowly.
“And is that all?” he laughed.
“No, a saddle on the ground, a rooster on the fence—yes—and some sheep at the foot of the hill.”
“Nothing more?”
“No, I don’t think so—except the buckles on the harness and the birds flying near the pigeon-cote.”
“Yes—yes—is that all?”
“Yes中兴公司 , I’m sure it is.”
“You’re blind as a bat, girl,” he roared delightedly. “Look through this and see!” and he handed her the glass. “Buckles on the horses! Examine it玖佰卡 ! Don’t you see the pack thread it’s sewed with? And the saddle gall on the horse’s back? And the crack in the left fore-hoof青春搏击 ? Did you ever see anything more wonderful? Now look into the distance and tell me what else.”
“Haymakers,” gasped Miss Loring. “Two women, a man and—and, yes, a child. I couldn’t see them at all. There’s a rake and pitch fork, too——”
“And beyond?”
“Dykes and the sails of ships—a town and a tower with a cupola!”
“Splendid! And that’s only half. I’ve been looking at it for an hour and haven’t found everything yet. I’ll show them to you—see——”
And one by one he proudly revealed his latest discoveries. His passion for the minute almost amounted to an obsession, and the appearance of his large bulk poring over some delicate object of art was no unfamiliar one to[105] Jane, but she always humored him, because she knew that, although he was proud of his great house, here was the real interest that he found in it. His business enthralled him, but it made him merciless, too, and in this harmless hobby his daughter had discovered a humanizing influence which she welcomed and encouraged. It gave them points of contact from which Mrs. Loring was far removed, and Jane was always the first person in the household to share the delights of his latest acquisitions. But to-night she was sure that her duty demanded a mild reproof.
“It’s an astonishing picture天元圣宝 , Daddy, but I’m sure we’ve both treated Mother very badly. You know you promised her——”
“So did you——”
“But I—I felt very badly.”
“So did I,” he chuckled, “very badly.” He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and drew her closer against his knees. “Oh, Jane, what’s the use? Life’s too short to do a lot of things you don’t want to do. Your mother likes to go around. Let her buzz, she likes it.”
“Perhaps she does马晓年 ,” Jane reproved him. “But then you and I have our duty.”
“Don’t let that worry you, child. I do my duty—but I do it in a different way. Your mother stalks her game in its native wild. I don’t. I wait by the water hole until it comes to drink, and then I kill it.”
“But people here must have some assurance that new families are acceptable——”
“Don’t worry about that, either. We’ll do, I guess. And when I want to go anywhere, or want my family to go anywhere, I ask, that’s all. The women don’t run New York society. They only think they do. If there’s[106] any house you want to go to or any people you want to come to see us, you tell me about it. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but my way is the quickest. I’m not going to have you hanging on the outer fringe. You can be the jewel and the ornament of the year. Even Mrs. Suydam will take you under her wing王鸿谟 , if you want her to.”
“But I don’t want to be under any one’s wing. I might turn out to be the ugly duckling.”
He pressed her fondly in his great arms. “You are—a duckling—it’s a pity you’re so ugly.” He laughed at his joke and broke off and seized the glass from her fingers.
“Jane,” he cried, “you didn’t find the woman inside the farmhouse! And the jug on the bench beside——”
But Miss Loring’s thoughts were elsewhere.
“Daddy, I don’t want people to come to see me, unless I like them,” she went on slowly, “and I don’t want to go to peoples’ houses just because they’re fashionable houses. I want to choose my friends for myself.”
“You shall!” he muttered, laying down his glass with a sigh and putting his arm around her again. And then with a lowered voice, “You haven’t seen anybody you—you really like yet, daughter, have you?”
“No,” said Miss Loring, with a positiveness which startled him. “No one—not a soul.”
“Not Coleman Van Duyn——”
“Daddy缪寿良 !” she cried. “Of course not奇鹤堂 !”
“And no one else?”
“No one else.”
He grunted comfortably. “I’m glad of that. I haven’t seen anybody good enough for you yet. I’m glad it’s not Van Duyn—or young Sackett. I thought, perhaps, you had,” he finished.
“Why?”
[107]
“You’ve been so quiet lately.”
“Have I?” she smiled into the fire. “I didn’t know it.”
“Don’t you let people worry you, and don’t take this society game too seriously. It’s only a game, and a poor one at that. It’s only meant for old fools who want to be young and young fools who want to be old. Those people don’t play it just for the fun of the thing—to them it’s a business, and they work at it harder than a lot of galley-slaves. You’ve got to try it, of course, I believe in trying everything, but don’t you let it get you twisted—the ball-room, with its lights, its flowers and its pretty speeches. They’re all part of the machinery. The fellow you’re going to marry won’t be there, Jane. He’s too busy.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Oh, nobody in particular,” he snorted. “But I don’t believe you’ll ever marry a carpet-knight. You won’t if I can stop you, at any rate.” He had taken out a cigar and snipped the end of it carefully with a pocket-knife. “They’re a new kind of animal to me, these young fellows about town,” he said between puffs. “Beside a man, they’re what the toy pug is to the bulldog or the Pomeranian is to the ‘husky.’ Fine dogs they are,” he sniffed, “bred to the boudoir and the drawing-room!”
“But some of them are very nice, Daddy,” said Jane. “You know you liked Dirwell De Lancey and William Worthington.”
“Oh, they’re the harmless kind, playful and amusing!” he sneered. “But they’re only harmless because they haven’t sense enough to be anything else. You’ll meet the other kind, Jane, the loafers and the drunkards.”
Miss Loring leaned quickly forward away from him, her elbows on her knees, and looked into the fire.
[108]
“I suppose so,” she said quietly.
“It’s the work of the social system, Jane. Most of these old families are playing a losing game, their blood is diluted and impoverished, but they still cling to their ropes of sand. They marry their children to our children钱煦 , but God knows that won’t help ’em. It isn’t money they need. Money can’t make new gristle and cartilage. Money can’t buy new fiber.”

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