Explore "A Nine Day's Wonder" by B.M. Croker on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was a soft and exquisite autumn afternoon. A delicate blue haze lay over the hills; the dense, dark woods were steeped in breathless silence, and the only sound that caught the ear, was the rattle of a reaping machine. As Lord Mulgrave and Mr. Usher turned down the long, straight road leading to Foley's Corner, the earl was livid, his expression was set; evidently he was struggling in the grip of some vehement emotion, and the name of this disturbing element was "suspense." Would it be true? or false? Would it be Joseline's daughter? or some raw, uncouth stranger? Was it the wild-goose chase his wife had predicted, or the pursuit and capture of happiness? Oh, these next ten minutes would mean so much to him; he almost felt, this self-contained man, as if he were treading on the very boundaries of life and death.
"Joseline's daughter," he was saying to himself. "Joseline's daughter."