× FORE:

× FORE:"Ah! don't I know?" he said, and as I sat naked from throat to waist with the old negro laving the sores, Ferry scanned them narrowly. "They are not so bad, Dick; you think a few hours in the saddle will not make them worse?"

× FORE:"Well, this is not going to the Great Wall. We went out of Pekin by the north gate, and into a country that was flat and dusty. Fred's pony was not very good-natured, and every little while took it into his head to balance himself on the tip of his tail. This was not the kind of riding we had bargained for, as it made the travel rather wearisome, and interfered with the progress of the whole caravan. We thought the pony would behave himself after a little fatigue had cooled his temper; but the more we went on, the worse he became. When we were about ten miles out, he ran away, and went tearing through a cotton-field as though he owned it, and he ended by pitching his rider over his head across a small ditch.CHAPTER X.

× FORE:A portion of the way took our friends through the grounds of some of the castles, and the boys were rather astonished at the extent of these residences of princes. Doctor Bronson explained that Tokio was formerly a city of princes, and that the residences of the Daimios, as these great men were called, were of more consequence at one time than all the rest of the city. The palace of a Daimio was known as a yashiki, and the yashikis were capable, in some instances, of lodging five or ten thousand men. Under the present government the power of the princes has been taken away, and their troops of retainers have been disbanded. The government has converted the most of the yashikis into offices and barracks and schools, and one at least has been turned into a manufactory.Alice did not pursue the subject, and since there was now no chance of Mr Silverdale��s coming in again, she put on her spectacles, which enabled her to see the lines of the pomegranate foliage with far greater distinctness. Never before had she had so vivid an interest in life as during these last two months; indeed the greater part of the female section of the congregation at St Thomas��s had experienced a similar quickening of their emotions, and a ��livelier iris�� burnished up the doves of the villas in Alfred Road. The iris in question, of course, was the effect of the personality of Cuthbert Silverdale, and if he was not, as he averred, being spoiled, the blame did not lie with his parishioners. They had discovered, as he no doubt meant them to do, that a soldier-saint had come among them, a missioner, a crusader, and they vied with each other in adoring and decorative obedience, making banners and embroideries for his church (for he allowed neither slippers nor neckties for himself) and in flocking to his discourses, and working under his guidance in the parish. There had been frantic discussions and quarrels over rites and doctrines; households had{107} been divided among themselves, and, as at The Cedars, sections of families had left St Thomas��s altogether and attached themselves to places of simpler ceremonial. The Bishop had been appealed to on the subject of lights, with the effect that the halo of a martyr had encircled Mr Silverdale��s head, without any of the inconveniences that generally attach to martyrdom, since the Bishop had not felt himself called upon to take any steps in the matter. Even a protesting round-robin, rather sparsely attested, had been sent him, in counterblast to which Alice Keeling with other enthusiastic young ladies had forwarded within a couple of days a far more voluminously signed document, quoting the prayer-book of Edward VI. in support of their pastor, according to their pastor��s interpretation of it at his Wednesday lectures on the history of the English Church.

× FORE:Next morning they were not very early risers, and the whole trio were weary and sore from the effect of the ride of ninety miles on the backs of Chinese ponies. Frank said that when he was sitting down he hesitated to rise for fear he should break in two, and Fred asserted that it was dangerous to go from a standing to a sitting position for the same reason.

× FORE:

× FORE:A GIRL WHO HAD NEVER SEEN A DRESSING-PIN. A GIRL WHO HAD NEVER SEEN A DRESSING-PIN.

× FORE:

× FORE:"Oh," said Arthur, his mouth opening wide. And then he stammered quickly, "that noise, you know."