"Not in the least," Doctor Bronson explained. "It is an old custom for married women to blacken their teeth, and formerly it was most rigidly observed; but of late years, since the foreigners came to Japan, it has not been adhered to. The Japanese see that a married woman can get along without having her teeth discolored, and as they are inclined to fall into the customs of Europe, the most progressive of them not only permit, but require, their wives to keep their teeth white."
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But look at it just a second from my point of view. I shall owe my
We went into the observatory, where the servants were sleeping in the open air on camp beds, lying across each other and blocking the entrance.[Pg 177] I went to gaze at the north star, looking very small, a tiny spangle of blue in the blue velvet sky, visible at the top of a crazy flight of steps that goes up to nowhere in the air from the topmost terrace.
“Golly-gracious! That might be,” Larry exclaimed.
It was still early. The mountain echoes had not sung back the tattoo of the trumpets as yet. There was a storm coming on from the snow peak in the west, and the clouds, dark with light edges, were thick in the sky. Lawton was sober enough now. Not so far away in its little pocket among the hills he could see the post, with all its lights twinkling, as though one of the clear starry patches in the heavens were reflected[Pg 205] in a black lake in the valley. And the road stretched out faint and gray before him.
[161]
An impalpable something in the tones and words stilled everybody into seriousness. This was deepened by the look they saw on Si's face.
Then suddenly she began to plead:
But it was no good telling Albert not to fret. He threw himself from side to side in the bed, moaned, and almost raved. For months now he had known that he must die soon, but somehow the idea had not really come home to him till this moment. He would not let Pete leave him, though there was a load of mangolds to be brought in; he clung to his brother's hand like a child, and babbled of strange sins.