Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War by John Fox
page 83 of 183 (45%)
page 83 of 183 (45%)
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turned from the sunset her eyes had all its deep tender light.
Dusk was falling, and already Raincrow and Crittenden were jogging along toward her at that hour--the last trip for either for many a day--the last for either in life, maybe--for Raincrow, too, like his master, was going to war--while Bob, at home, forbidden by his young captain to follow him to Chickamauga, trailed after Crittenden about the place with the appealing look of a dog--enraged now and then by the taunts of the sharp-tongued Molly, who had the little confidence in the courage of her fellows that marks her race. Judith was waiting for him on the porch, and Crittenden saw her from afar. She was dressed for the evening in pure white--delicate, filmy--showing her round white throat and round white wrists. Her eyes were soft and welcoming and full of light; her manner was playful to the point of coquetry; and in sharp contrast, now and then, her face was intense with thought. A faint, pink light was still diffused from the afterglow, and she took him down into her mother's garden, which was old-fashioned and had grass-walks running down through it--bordered with pink beds and hedges of rose-bushes. And they passed under a shadowed grape-arbour and past a dead locust-tree, which a vine had made into a green tower of waving tendrils, and from which came the fragrant breath of wild grape, and back again to the gate, where Judith reached down for an old-fashioned pink and pinned it in his button-hole, talking with low, friendly affection meanwhile, and turning backward the leaves of the past rapidly. Did he remember this--and that--and that? Memories--memories--memories. |
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