The Tin Soldier by Temple Bailey
page 28 of 441 (06%)
page 28 of 441 (06%)
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going to the ball, on Our Policeman wanting a shave, on the orphans in
boxes, on baked potato offered as hospitality by a half-starved hostess, on a waiting Cinderella asleep on a frozen doorstep. And then the ball--and Mona Lisa, and the Duchess of Devonshire, and The Girl with the Pitcher and the Girl with the Muff--and Cinderella in azure tulle and cloth-of-gold, dancing with the Prince at the end like mad--. Then the bell boomed--the lights went out--and after a little moment, one saw Cinderella, stripped of her finery, staggering up the stairs. Jean cried and laughed, and cried again. Yet even in the midst of her emotion, she found her eyes pulled away from that appealing figure on the stage to those faintly illumined figures in the box. When the curtain went down, her father, most surprisingly, bowed to the old gentleman and received in return a genial nod. "Oh, do you know him?" she demanded. "Yes. It is General Drake." "Who are the others?" "I am not sure about the women. The boy in the back of the box is his son, DeRhymer Drake." Derry! |
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