Sisters, the
THE SISTERS By Georg Ebers Volume 2. CHAPTER VII. In the very midst of the white wall with its bastions and ramparts, which formed the fortifications of Memphis, stood the old palace of the kings, a stately structure built of bricks, recently plastered, and with courts, corridors, chambers and halls without number, and veranda-like out- buildings of gayly-painted wood, and a magnificent pillared banqueting- hall in the Greek style. It was surrounded by verdurous gardens, and a whole host of laborers tended the flower-beds and shady alleys, the shrubs and the trees; kept the tanks clean and fed the fish in them; guarded the beast-garden, in which quadrupeds of every kind, from the heavy-treading elephant to the light-footed antelope, were to be seen, associated with birds innumerable of every country and climate.
"I don't know what you mean," said the downright Mr. Brockton.
"No?" Mrs. Dinsmore was sure that the impertinence of her monosyllable
would be lost upon her elderly protege. "I'll make it clear to you, if
I can. Millicent, you know, has nothing--"
"With that figure and that face?" interrupted Brockton, with gallant
enthusiasm.
"I was speaking in your terms, Mr. Brockton," said the lady, with
suave hauteur. "Of course all of us count my cousin's charm and
accomplishments, though we do not inventory them as possessions far
above rubies. But in the valuation of the 'change she has nothing. Oh,
she may manage to extract five or six hundred a year from some
investments of my uncle, and she has the old Harned place in New
Hampshire. That might bring in as much as seven hundred dollars if the
abandoned farm-fever were still on--"
"By ginger!" boasted Brockton, whose expletives lacked _ton_,
"it's more than I had when I started."
"So I remember your saying before. But I fear that my cousin is not a
financial genius. What I meant by her struggles with her better nature
is that she sometimes tries to thwart us when we want to make things
easy for her. Her better nature had a fearful tussle with her common
THE SISTERS By Georg Ebers Volume 2. CHAPTER VII. In the very midst of the white wall with its bastions and ramparts, which formed the fortifications of Memphis, stood the old palace of the kings, a stately structure built of bricks, recently plastered, and with courts, corridors, chambers and halls without number, and veranda-like out- buildings of gayly-painted wood, and a magnificent pillared banqueting- hall in the Greek style. It was surrounded by verdurous gardens, and a whole host of laborers tended the flower-beds and shady alleys, the shrubs and the trees; kept the tanks clean and fed the fish in them; guarded the beast-garden, in which quadrupeds of every kind, from the heavy-treading elephant to the light-footed antelope, were to be seen, associated with birds innumerable of every country and climate.