#second one is mostly all that happened after his fathers death till being released from the clinic

[phasmophobie]

you're getting published! what's the title of your book and how does it look like? feel free to write a logline (if you feel like it).  rules : have fun with it ! just tag along if you wanna join. create book titles for you ; your friends ; your foes or stick with themes, if that's more up your alley. create whatever fuels your creativity. ( template )

» The Things You Made Me Do «

...is a poignant exploration of resilience and redemption, as Pavel confronts the ghosts of his past to reclaim his own narrative. With searing honesty and raw emotions, he invites readers into the heart of his haunted world, where the ghosts of yesterday hold sway, and the journey toward healing begins with the courage to confront the darkness within.

» Quaterlife «

With a blend of psychological depth and overcoming trauma, this personal piece invites readers to ponder the unseen forces that shape our lives and the power of confronting our inner demons to find peace within.

» The Shadows Are Missing Light: a guide through the paranormal «

Esteemed ghosthunter Pavel Zamádis takes readers on a captivating journey into the mysterious world of specters, spirits, and apparitions. Drawing upon years of experience and expertise in the field, Zamádis illuminates the diverse spectrum of ghostly manifestations, offering invaluable insights into their origins, behaviors, and classifications.

tagged by: @thisis-elijah & @exsecrabar ( thank you a lot for the help!)

tagging: @heartofglass-mindofstone , @ertraeumte , @trauma-report , @caughtbetweenworlds , @a-neverending-story , @godpyre , @poizungaru & you !

[hopesbarnes]

NOT WHAT IT SEEMS (9)

Summary: Social Media AU; Y/N L/N, Peter Parker, and Harry Osborn are thick as thieves. Best friends till the end. They just don’t tell each other everything. Peter doesn’t know Y/N is in love with him, and Y/N doesn’t know he’s Spiderman. College is hard enough without all the secrets and lies. But everything has to come to light at some point? Doesn’t it?

A/N: This chapter is mostly text but there’s a few pictures also. Only two more chapters after this... (ps i see the typo in the text)

“You are really sucking at this game,” Peter says laughing.

“What 20 year old has Guess Who anyway,” you say and flip-down more characters. 

“Completely mature and grown-up ones. Duh,” he says and smiles cheekily. 

“Your smile’s really cute,” you say and put your face down to hide how much you’re freaking out. You didn’t mean to say that comment aloud.

“Peter- I,” you say at the same time he says “Y/N, you-” and the two of you nervously giggle and he shakes his head. 

“You first,” he says and you nod. 

“I really like you, Pete,” you admit shyly.

“Thank fucking god,” he says and your head snaps up. “I really like you too.” And for a moment it feels like there aren’t any barriers between you. It doesn’t feel like you’re Black Cat, the vigilante thief who kills people. It just feels like you’re a girl. A girl in love with her best friend. 

His eyes drift to your lips and you slowly lean in closer to him. You’ve been dreaming of kissing Peter Parker for far too long, and it finally is going to come true. Until he freezes and looks shaken.

“I- uh. I have to go,” he says suddenly and grabs his jacket before taking off. From his apartment. You have no idea what happened. Maybe this was all too much for him...

You use a grappling hook to swing near where the Avenger’s tower is. It’s late and the only thing illuminating the city is neon lights. The A on the tower shines bright, a symbol of hope for all people. All people who don’t see the greedy nature of Tony Stark, or annoying need to be good that Spiderman exudes. The need that jailed your ex-boyfriend instead of giving him the slow excruciating death he deserves. You take in a breath and release your retractable claws. There’s a fight to win.

You land on the building next to the tower and watch the scene unfold in the distance. Spiderman and Goblin are at fighting at the top of the building and it doesn’t look good. Harry’s throwing punches, but Spiderman dodges every one or swings out of their reach. Their skills are matched and Harry needs a tipping point to win. A tipping point that has your name written on it. You switch your comm to the channel Harry told you to use and perch yourself on the side of the building you’re on.  

“Goblin, where’s the file,” you shout knowing that the file on the flashdrive is what matters most.

“By the glass door!” he yells back between grunts. You back up and take off running towards the tower using your claws to grip the railing of the launchpad beneath where they’re fighting. You know Spiderman can sense you now and will see you any minute now. 

You attach the grappling hook again, this time to the structure above you and front flip right into the spider’s eyesight.

“Black Cat! Nice to meet you. I don’t like cats very much!” he says and still manages to grab Harry’s fist mid punch. This time though it knocks Harry off balance and sends him falling to the ground. It allows Spiderman to run over to where you are, and you lose the time advantage to grab the file still laying by the doors at least twenty feet away. You try to twist and leap off the story you’re on and land back on the landing pad, but he thwips a web at your leg and pulls you back down to the ground. He goes to pull the web towards him, but you use your claw to cut the substance from you. It gives you enough time to turn his trick against him and yank the web sending him towards you and on top of you.

“Hi, there spider,” you say sweetly and reach a hand up and caress his masked face. 

“Huh?” he says at your motion, and you weave your leg over his allowing you to flip your body over his and cage him in. It works like a charm and stuns him enough to get you to stand.

“Cat, I got the drive, we need to get out of here,” Harry says over the comms and you do a back walkover to the edge of the building.

“You were fun to play with Spidey, but I gotta go!” you coo and dive backward off the building landing in a crouched position on the landing pad. Harry uses his glider to reach you and shows you the drive in his hand. 

“We’re in business again,” he says and you can tell beneath his mask he’s grinning. He reaches a leg up to board his glider again, but instead is paralyzed and you see electricity move through his body. It causes him to collapse to the ground again. 

You spot the thread connected to his suit and follow it to see it reach Spiderman’s hands. He’s dangling from the upper layer with one arm and using the other to send a taser web to the Goblins’ suit. It had to have caused his suit to reboot and leave him temporarily vulnerable. He releases the taser web and sends a new web to grab the drive that has fallen from Harry’s gloved hand to the ground next to him. He isn’t quick enough though and you jump to grab the drive and get pulled back to where Spiderman hangs. 

“Someone’s eager for another round,” you say before getting ready to steal the drive back. It gets tossed to the other side of the building. You have to get Spiderman off the roof before you can get it.

“Just can’t let this in the hands of a cat burglar. No hard feelings though,” he chuckles.

The two of you are mere feet apart and circle each other like predators intimidating their prey.

“You do know cats kill spiders for fun, right?” you say and run towards him, sliding beneath his legs at the last minute getting him off balance. He swings a web your way but you duck it and double back towards him.

You get close enough and manage to kick his stomach. He recoils in pain but doesn’t drop. 

“You’re pretty resilient. But baby, so am I,” you scoff and walk towards him. He throws a punch that you dodge. It allows you to get behind him and claw his back with your talons. 

“Fuck! That stung!” he yells. Finally, Harry flies back up and tosses one of him bombs towards Spiderman. It goes off with a loud bang and a fire starts. The two of you worked in the Oscorp labs to lace Harry’s bombs with a neuroinhibitor that temporarily disables Spiderman’s spidey senses.  

Harry flies to where the drive is, but Spiderman follows behind and throws a web to grab hold of Goblin. But instead, it attaches to his mask and knocks it loose. With a yank of the web, the mask comes off. You’re sure it wasn’t Spiderman’s intention to unmask Harry, but it’s been done. And it’s abundantly clear that the heir to Oscorp, the headliner of many gossip columns, and son of Norman Osborn has been wreaking havoc on the city.

“Shit,” you mutter under your breath. There’s no coming back from this. Harry is done for. 

“Harry Osborn?” Spiderman says and Harry freezes for a second upon hearing his name. But he swiftly gets his footing back and grabs another bomb from his glider. Before he can throw it towards the spider, his wrist is kicked and the bomb gets thrown towards you. 

“Y/N look out!” Harry yells out instinctively. His eyes go wide once he realizes his mistake and all he can do is blink. You duck the bomb effortlessly, letting it hit a corner of the building and the area goes up in flames. 

“Y/N?” The masked spider says. There’s hurt laced in his voice and you don’t know why. All you know is your days of being a masked vigilante are gone. You relied on being in the shadows, and unknown force that took justice into her own claws. But all that is over now.

Spiderman pulls at his mask, and you’re left face to face with the boy you’ve been in love with for as long as you can remember. Peter Parker. Your Peter Parker. The same guy you were just playing a game with mere hours ago. The guy who trips on his laces and sends you goofy chemistry puns. He’s been a superhero this entire time. Not just a superhero, the one you have been helping Harry takedown. 

“Pete?” you say and drop your mask too, there’s no point in trying to keep anonymity now. 

“You’re spiderman?” You ask rhetorically. You can’t wrap your mind around the fact he’s the spider. God, he’s Harrys best friend too. They’re roommates for christ’s sake. How did everything get so twisted?

“Oh god. What have we done,” you say and collapse to the ground. A tear leaves your eye. All you wanted was to help those who didn’t get justice. And serve that justice to those who escaped it. Maybe steal a few things from those who didn’t need them, but you never meant to let it get this far. 

“I’m so sorry. I can’t fight you. I’m in love with you!” you admit aloud and Peter kneels beside you. He wraps his arms tightly and you hold him tight. But Harry comes to shatter the reunion.

“You fucking killed my father!” He says venomously. Peter stands up to try and reason with him, but he doesn’t stop and impales Peter on a sharp-tipped boomerang. The blade goes straight through Peter’s chest and he collapses to the ground.

“You stabbed him!” you cry out. Harry reaches unceremoniously for the drive that fell from Peter’s hand and goes to take off. As if he didn’t just stab his best friend. 

“Y/N! We need to go!” he says without any discernable emotion, but you can’t move. You can’t leave your Peter here to bleed out. 

“I’m not going with you, Harry. This has all gotten out of hand!” you say and Harry takes off. Leaving you and a bleeding Peter parker. Both unmasked, and in a situation, you shouldn’t be in.

[the-trashy-phoenix]

Supernatural season 2 review (part 2)

Link to part 1:

Irene and I have finished watching Supernatural season 2 (we're already on season 3), so here it comes my review on it. I like this season more than the first one: we already know this supernatural world and have learnt to love the brothers, and since the big bad guy isn't dead yet we want to see what happens next. The plot evolves from the first season, we understand many things we didn't before and it is all suddenly way more interesting (meanwhile I feel like the most interesting thing in the first season were the single episodes). Sam's psychics abilities have a purpose and we learn there's sort of a pattern involving other people, the same age as Sam, who have all the same destiny: to become warriors for an upcoming war. In this season we have the chance to see more of Azazel (the yellow-eyed demon), what he's capable of and what he has done to Sam (and the consequences of it, including how Dean has to deal with all of this, meanwhile being in a terrible position). At the end of the season, even if he's been defeated by John himself, we know Sam is not back to normal (and we also know the truth about Azazel is not totally revealed, since we now know Mary had already met the demon before the night she died).

Season 1 ends with the car accident, so the first thing we see in the first episode of the second season is the brothers and John in the hospital. Dean is almost dead and has no chance of surviving, but John makes a deal with Azazel and dies instead of Dean (sacrificing the colt too). I understand why John would do that (one of the not-many-things I understand about his behaviour), but I also think this is one of the many things he has done that leads to Dean suffering and blaming it all over himself. No wonder why this boy behaves the way he behaves: he has all of this emotional pain he carries with him since he was basically four years old. Of course Dean doesn't talk about his father's death and acts like it's not affecting him, although it does, a lot. Sam's reaction is different, but I think it was very appropriate: the thing is most upset about is the fact that he and his father had never actually gotten along very well and that they had a fight right before John's death. I also think that both brothers haven't had quite the opportunity to grief from their father's death (just be sad for his absence and think about their true feelings for him), because they were to focus on bigger events involving John's last moments with them. Another thing that keeps them occupied is the main problem in this season, Azazel and all that he causes.

There's a thing I forgot about and that, as I rewatched the season, surprised me: Dean already wants to quit hunting. The fact that he is even more fed up than Sam shows us that in reality, as much as he wanted to be like his father and behave like John told him to, he doesn't want to live the life he is supposed to live (and we can also see it in episode 02x20, in which Dean sees what his life could have been without the death of his mother and demonstrates lots of courage by choosing to return to his normal life anyway). Knowing both what Dean wants and all that things that happen later in the other seasons, this makes me very sad.

Since we're speaking of Dean, I was left a bit shocked by his lack of hesitance on killing the people with the Croatoan virus (02x09). I get that he wanted to stop the virus, but they remained people, and of course when Sam gets the virus he doesn't kill him, which is more than understandable, but it also means that he could've at least waited a bit more before killing the others.

Since I've seen all of the other seasons rewatching 02x13 has been pretty funny, especially because of Dean. He keeps telling he doesn't believe in the angels’ crap and, well, we all know he's gonna change his mind. I also like that Sam is still faithful after all he's been through and especially since he's in this position of supernatural-slightly-demonic powers.

Speaking of which, John leaves a message to Dean before dying: if he can't save Sam from his powers he has to kill him instead of letting him become evil. This leads Dean to have two big thoughts hunting him, his supposed duty to kill his brother and his guilt for his father's death. I always feel like all the responsibilities grow on him and I would love it if he could have a way to release these feelings in some ways, but of course he never does it properly. It turns out Sam agrees with his father and tells Dean to kill him, but Dean has no intention of doing it (reasonably). In this season we can see how much Sam is scared of his psychic abilities, almost as if he's scared of turning in a monster (and we can see it clearly in what I think is the saddest episode of the season, 02x17, in which Sam has to kill the girl who turned out to be a werewolf).

I like how the writers have developed the jail theme, having episodes 02x07, 02x12, 02x19, in which the brothers have to face justice for what they've apparently done. The thing I like the most about these episodes is the fact that we know the Winchester have been in trouble with the law for good reasons, it is frustrating (but in a good way) to see the other people mistaking them for the bad guys (till a point they're even called monsters) and we can't even be mad at the cops, because they don't know the truth.

In this season there are introduced some new characters. First of all, I have to mention the trickster, not just because he provides the most senseless episode of the season (02x15, which I love), but also because I know his time on Supernatural is not over yet, fortunately. We also meet Ellen and Jo Harvelle, a mother and her daughter who own and manage the Roadhouse, a bar attended mostly by hunters, in which we find another character, Ash. I like all three of them for different reasons. Ash, the one with less screen time, is not as important as the other two, but he gives some funny moments and he's a smart guy (and I like the scene where Dean compliments his hairstyle). Ellen is a sweet and strong woman hurt by the death of her husband and a caring mother who doesn't want her daughter to have the same faith as her father. Jo, my favourite, is a passionate young girl who wants to follow her father's footprints and become a hunter. I honestly like her character a lot and the dynamic she has with dean in season two (end especially how they don't make out the second Dean enter the bar), they care about each other (Jo probably more than Dean does for now) and I love the fact that he has a girl in his life he doesn't just want to fuck (or viceversa), but who he can also kinda rely on. The only thing I don’t really get is the way she treats him after she finds out her father was with John when he died during a hunt (and that John was probably a part of what caused his death). I understand that she probably thinks (like her mother) that Dean would do the same thing with her, but it’s not like he has already done it, and he actually doesn’t know anything about what happened to her father.

There is also another character who's introduced in the first seasons but who has much more screen time in this one: Bobby Singer. He's one of my favourite characters on Supernatural ever and, I mean, who doesn't think it the same way? He's a loving, but also grumpy, old man who can perfectly sostituite John in his father role, indeed he's much better than him. He doesn't treat Sam and Dean as soldiers, but as his children first, and he cares about what troubles them and what inner thoughts they're facing. And that leads us at the end of the season, when Dean has already made the deal with a demon to bring his brother back to life (a thing Dean has condemned before, especially because his father did the same for him, which demonstrated a bit of hypocrisy, even if it's comprehensible). Bobby is mad at him and for good reasons: he understands Dean wanting Sam back and doesn't blame him for it, but what worries Bobby the most is the little (almost non-existent) care Dean reserves for himself. His self esteem (which is talked about more in the third season) seems so low he doesn't even care if he ends up in hell (and that he will in about a year). All he's been good at is being a good soldier and keeping his brother safe, protecting him, so when he faces the fact he hasn't saved Sam he can't live without bringing him back to life, even if that means sacrificing himself in the most terrible way. Sam now has to live with the weight of his brother's death and trip to hell (beside worrying about the upcoming war with the demons who escaped hell), but these are the main themes of season 3.

- Carly 💚

[crystal-archives]

Headcanon AU: Saphira Belrose (24)

This conducts character analysis and lore. Remember: This is an alternative timeline, where some events have changed.

• Her real dream was to become a model (aside being a Dragon Ace maybe), but had to give them up due to taking over Monty's gym position, after his death.

• She was more of a typical "Big Sis" and "normal teenager", but slowly changed into a stoic and aggressive person after the hardships she underwent. Though she still has her emotion, but doesn't she them.

• She wasn't that interested in becoming a Pokemon Trainer, but she still loved to train her dragons back them as a child.

• Her father gave her a Dratini, Tyrunt and an Axew when she was 5 years old.

• When her Belrose Residence was caught fire and her father died, Saphira was 16.

• During her 2 years stay at the orphanage (or I call it Lapis Treatment House), she often clashed with Dr. Sigmund due to his methods on and what happened to her family. Threats and escalations where exchanged.

• Saphira became the parent figure and protected Laura and Charlotte from constant bullying, after Caroline became unable to do so.

• After becoming a legal adult, her mother, Caroline, managed somehow to take her daughters only for 4 years before she died in an accident. Turns out she made a shady contract with the doctor, so her daugthers would be protected at her will.

• However Saphira's behaviour became worst when Caroline died after 4 years and Labradorra City was occupied by the Coldcution Family, forcing her to take some horrible choices, which made her slowly unstable, causing her to leave her sisters back at Lapis Ward.

• The reason: Saphira tried to kill the Chairman of the Yureyu Company and patriarch of the Coldcution Family, bit failed and got arrested for 8 months.

• After being released, she was in a unstable condition and that broke her down to the point of not talking to people till 2 weeks. Only people, who were close to hear could communicate worh her.

• As a result, she left for a 2 years hellish training with her Pokemon to make herself stronger. She mostly trains at Tazan Depths and Charos Mountain.

• She has a vengeful desire towards Sigmund (suspecting him about her mother's condition) and the Coldcution Family (taking charge as a co- government in Labradorra City and oppressing her people) and her hatred only grows.

• She doesn't trust Eliza Connal at all due to being Sigmund's daughter, although her actions tell otherwise.

• Despite being hardened and stoic, she still is caring and protective towards her family and her city. However enemies might use this against her.

• She and Titania became the Second-in Commanders for the Reborn Resistance.

• Saphira once had a girlfriend from Calcenon City, but broke up with her due to fearing becoming her a potential target to Team Meteor. They lost contact 6 years now.

• Her team consists of Dragonite, Tyramtrum, Haxarus, Goodra (found at the Water Treatment Center as Goomy), Salemence (at the Charos Mountain as Bagon) and Druddigon (inherented from her father).

• She's bestfriended all Steelix at the Tazan Depths; especially one shiny nicknaming it "Crysorock".

• Physically she's a force to reco with, but mentally not so.

• Despite giving up her model dreams, she does a few mini jobs for the Monthly Magazine.

• Often she would put others above her own needs (such as sleeping or eating), leaving her often physically (and emotionally) vulnerable.

[rabidfangirlteehee]

Harry Potter rewrite

A lot of the time when I look at fanfiction I kind of think of it as an alternative to read because the original exists. As in I don’t necessarily think Slytherin Harry is better than Griffindor Harry but because Harry is in Gryffindor in cannon Slytherin Harry is fun to explore.

So I started to wonder what would I change about canon if it couldn’t be changed back. If hypothetically I could change the story and what was originally there wouldn’t exist only this book series would exist. What would I do?

So first of all I would give Hermione an arc. There are characters that I think have good setups for arcs but weren’t fully explored. Hermione is one of them. She didn’t technically have an arc over the course of the series. She had an arc in the first book where she learnt that being a good student and clever and respectful of authority isn’t always the most important or valuable thing to be. But despite this her willingness to break the rules is still commented on as if its a big moment for her going against rules and authority. Sure Hermione isn’t the type to vocally sass authority figures like Harry or Ron. But she lit Snape on fire without a second thought in the first book. And has done something or another rebellious on her own accord in pretty much every book. Wouldn’t really say its an arc overall. Often it seems less like she grew or changed but rather you saw a side to her that didn’t exist. Which is fine. But since she does have a good set up for an arc I want to go with it.

Hermione is great but she’s not the best people person. She is usually bad at empathy she tries not to be but it leads her to be accidentally insensitive more so than other kids her age. This can be forgivable if you know where she’s coming from and are understanding of her as a person. But its hard to do that before you know that and kids aren’t always the most understanding bunch. So rather than becoming automatic best friends after the Troll incident what happens is that Harry Ron and Hermione get closer.

They still aren’t the trio yet but the duo with Hermione third wheeling. Her becoming closer to them is an arc with them slowly bonding more with shared experiences and realizing they have more in common than they thought. She is still more involved in their schemes than others but because she’s not automatic best friend she’s not always the one Harry and Ron go to. This also lends a way for Harry and Ron to get close to other students and bond with them too. 

Hermione in the meantime does struggle to get people to understand her better. She’s not the best at communicating her feelings and thoughts and sometimes just does things. She’s most usually right but maintaining relationships aren’t really about who was most right in a situation. But as they get to know her better despite the hiccups she learns to explain herself better and while she never gets the best people skills they grow to understand her better and appreciate her efforts and push others to do the same.

Secondly Draco and other Slytherins. Draco had sorta a redemption near the end by showing he really wasn’t into this Voldemort stuff, and by not telling Bellatrix about Harry in disguise. He also ends up marrying someone in canon whose views go against the views he was raised with and he embraces those views and rejects his parents views. So clearly the intention that he would change for the better but it wasn’t really explored and it happened so near the end it left less of an impact. This is also true for the not all Slytherins are evil idea. I think that was Rowling’s intention but showing good Slytherin’s happens too close to the end so it feels more like exceptions to the rule. So instead we can see moments where Harry sees Slytherins being good decent people and not bigots. So we can acknowledge while some are and they do have influence and power they aren’t all Slytherins or even necessarily most. So we can acknowledge the names of the ones who are bigots and the ones who aren’t the ones who aren’t can even help out Harry occasionally and make temporary groups with Harry for certain issues happening in school. Overtime while Draco maintains a rivilry with Harry you can see him back away from his bigoted beliefs in his behavior, the language he uses, and the friends he has even changing the minds of certain people who used to be bigoted. He might end up either running away from home in his summer over 5th year rather than joining the death eaters. This could also help him parallel Sirius. I personally see Draco in canon as what could have happened to Sirius had he not been exposed to people like James sooner. His exposure to ideas that challenged what he had known as true led him to question more things at an early age.  As a consequence of this Lucius is killed but he Narcissa and Draco discuss it beforehand. That staying is a bad idea that even though there may be consequences they will be fine but despite that Draco should leave. Draco is led to believe they will both survive. He is just a kid he wants to believe that he wants to trust in that so he does. But as they do this Narcissa and Lucius both know that at least one if not both of them will end up dead. Its not that Lucius suddenly decided everything Voldemort stood for was wrong but Voldemort was tyrannical and controlling enough that he didn’t want his son involved despite the fact that tensions were higher between them due to Draco’s beliefs conflicting with his own and that becoming more apparent. Perhaps it was because of that it felt more necessary with beliefs like that Draco was doomed by staying. 

So he ends up running away and when he does Dumbledore has him hide in Grimmauld place. While he might come back 5th year he may refuse to in his 6th year or very occasionally have to leave school due to close calls and hide out at Grimmauld place. To explore more of his similarities to Sirius, Sirius ends up living and mentoring both Harry and Draco somewhat in addition to finally becoming a free man. So he can still be an asset in book 6 and 7 as he survives the war ( as does Remus). Draco is devastated by the consequences of running away but stands by it as if he goes back now his father would have died for nothing.

Next would be Snape. Snape’s redemption in Harry’s eyes always bothered me because it seemed to just be because Snape loved Lilly. I mean perhaps that’s sympathetic. But its lets sympathetic if you consider that its the only reason he went against Voldemort. There is nothing to indicate that his beliefs changed at anypoint. Or that he resented the work he did for Voldemort. Only that he resented Voldemort for killing Lilly.  But to see him as truly sympathetic and to believe that he was redeemed in Harry’s eyes that change in beliefs is very important. 

Another thing that bothered me in the series was how the love potion was handled. It wasn’t explored much in story. But it did strike me as odd how casual everyone treated it when it effectively is just the imperius with a dose of infatuation and the imperius is framed as so awful. Actual incidents referring to people using it aren’t that common. Molly mentions using it casually Romilda Vane uses it and its mostly shown in a comedic light till Ron is poisoned. The only way it’s really shown with any importance is with Merope Gaunt.

Merope had a horrific life and wanted and escape. She had the means to use a love potion to make Tom Riddle Sr. be with her so she did. This is pretty much brainwashing. Dumbledore even said both the imperius and love potion were options and that Merope probably used love potion solely because it would have seemed more romantic to her. However what is focused on here is mostly the heartbreak she suffered after she realized the love she was getting wasn’t really loved and wanted the real thing having never received it. And once Tom Sr. rejected her she lost the will to live and refused to use magic. Her pain his highlighted while her victims feelings aren’t really considered at all. Which is a bit yikes. So I would put in a longer first chapter in book 4. It would begin with Tom Riddle Sr coming back after his random romance with this girl no one even knew really existed and people were surprised he eloped with. They weren’t surprised he broke things off with her they couldn’t even explain why he left with her in the first place. Neither could he. But people didn’t bring it up much. He seemed pretty disturbed by the whole relationship. He’d come back changed much less social and more neurotic. It was a weirdly dramatic shift people were sure she’d done something to him but no one could figure out what. He wouldn’t speak of it. He grew withdrawn outside of his family he only communicated with one person. The gardener Frank. He was always very kind to Frank they got along great. So people were horrified when Frank was arrested for killing the Riddle family. Even though he was released people believed he had done it. The shade being thrown wasn’t only for killing his employers who were prolific members of the community but for betraying a broken man who trusted him. After that the end of the chapter plays out similarly with Frank in his old age going to investigate the abandoned Manor coming across Voldemort and Pettigrew discussing the Triwizard cup and being killed by Voldemort.

The last huge arc I would add is Molly. Molly is an overprotective at times controlling Mother whose entire family is involved in a covert war and constantly worries about the death of her family members. Her arc can involve her understanding that she can’t protect her children forever realizing that by trying to keep them safe by being controlling she could push them into rebelling in very dangerous impulsive ways they may have not otherwise have considered.

So firstly Percy doesn’t side with Fudge he sides with Dumbledore. He is very eager of approval and recognition and acceptance from people who he respects. But he respects Dumbledore and his parents more than Fudge and has always been the good child the obedient one. 

Instead of him leaving the Twins leave after having a fight about the direction of their future. Despite the fact that Molly is no longer keen on the Ministry her trying to push them to be something they are not has had an impact. The last summer she did ruin the inventions they’d be working on all summer. That would be a very big deal I think at their age. And she has been against their aspirations which can weigh down on them At home the rest are acting out more.

The more freaked out Molly gets the more controlling she gets to keep the kids safe and fights to stop the younger ones( Ron and Ginny) from getting involved shes also nervous about Bill and Charlie getting involved and has some tension with Bill over Fleur. Harry also rejects her attempt to keep him from Order related information.

But eventually she realizes even in intense times she still cant protect them forever. And by talking to Sirius realizes that by trying to push them away she might make them rebel and do something real stupid. So she reconciles with Fred and George and supports all of her kids joining the fight even if she’s scared she thinks it’s a worthy cause. 

Percy dies and is the only one who didn’t rebel and didn’t push for independence instead pushing for recognition and appreciation from authority figures he respected rather than following his own wishes. So his death will weigh on her on her worst days. She wonders that unlike the rest of them what if he fought only to meet expectations? Its left ambiguous if her fears are founded or not.

I considered killing off Fred too.

If Fred also died she’d have to do her best to stop George from slipping into depression and get involved in the joke shop finally come to understand the twins while the fact that her stubbornness kept her from being able to show this understanding before Fred died would constantly eat away at her. And honestly I kinda just want to give Molly a break here typing this out is honestly making me really depressed. So just Percy not Fred.

Finally we get to the epilogue and romantic relationships. So my main thing with the epilogue was I cared less about who they ended up with or who their kids and more about what their lives were like .

So for Harry I always thought that him becoming the permanent Defense teacher at Hogwarts would be the biggest snub to Voldemort. Since he got to have Hogwarts as his home when Voldemort wanted to but couldn’t and got the position he wanted to and couldn’t. Plus after all that stuff with Voldemort maybe he’d want something peaceful. As for his romantic relationships.

Harry and Cho go out for longer but don’t workout because both just have too many things to work on but they do remain friends. Harry’s love life is left ambiguous you see several people he had chemistry with but it’s unknown who he’s with or if he’s with anyone. Harry and Ginny never become a thing.

Ron and Hermione however do become a couple Ron is an auror Hermione went into Magical Law. Ron with his desire to not be ordinary and ambitious nature chooses to stay as an Auror and doesn’t help out at the joke shop its not necessary anyway Fred is still alive.

The three have become closer friends with Draco and the non bigot slytherin kids he is friends with. You will see them bonding a lot book 5 onwards but Harry Ron and Hermione were still closer to each other than Draco and his friends. Draco becomes a healer who works at St. Mungo’s.

Bill and Fleur still end up together but not Lupin and Tonks.

Tonks like Lupin and Sirius also survives 

Lupin ends up moving in with Sirius permanently and are a confirmed couple. I always thought he and Tonks came out of nowhere and it seemed like their only function as a couple seemed like it was to die so there would be another orphan from the war at least to me. Plus Lupin seemed so hesitant to be with her. Sirius and Lupin on the other hand have a well established relationships lived together for a time period and give joint gifts. Plus I personally love that Draco gets character growth spurred on by them too. Sirius goes on to teach Transfiguration at Hogwarts after Mcgonnigal becomes headmistress ( she can’t do both and who better to teach it than a guy who became an unregistered animagus before he was 15 ). 

Hagrid retires from teaching to become specifically just the gameskeeper and Lupin takes the care of Magical creatures class. Even when he did teach Defense he seemed to have a tendency to explore magical creatures associated with dark arts. Once a month he is out of commission and when he is Charlie Weasely comes by to substitute as a side job.

As for next gen kids Bill and Fleur already have a couple kids in the epilogue but it takes place much earlier than when the canon epilogue does. So they are still very young and not old enough to go to Hogwarts yet. Hermione and Ron don’t have kids but Hermione has recently been very invested in this program about reaching out to magical children with non magical guardians to offer support  and recently they’ve started reaching out to magical orphanages. So its hinted that Ron and Hermione might end up adopting a magical kid.

The rest of the remaining couples and children remain unconfirmed.

Incidentally if I did add a random couple that came out of nowhere with no basis it would be Fred and Tonks who hooked up years after the series ended based on events you never get to see.

[saralaurensmagalona]

Stepbrothers, a Thorki fanfic by Magalona

I'm back people ! Lots of work IRL but things are better now and I'm back to what I like ! Enjoy ! Warning : a hard scene at the end...

      Not to talk, not to look, not to hear... Loki had turned into the three little monkeys of the legend. The same ones sculpted in jade his father possessed  in his priceless collection of Asian art. Not to talk about this wedding, not to look at the preparations, not to hear the hellish nonsense going on around him. Not to say anything. Not to do anything. For, actually, what could he say ? What could he possibly do ?

A situation that was already unbearable was now becoming living hell. The two impostors were now in his house, his MOTHER's house, 24/7. Not that it was a material bother, said house being big enough for eight people, but Loki had to endure their sight, their voice, their stupid selfish happiness on a constant basis. As a result, he had a constant migraine. In fact, at first, no one noticed his growing dissociation, his silences, his secret moodiness. Of course, Loki had become a master in dissimulation. But more than that, the two lovebirds were engrossed in wedding planning, costly flower arrangements, lavish menus, even ridiculous embroidered napkins for an equally ridiculously royally set table. Loki simply wanted to puke each time they were shamelessly smooching each other like horny teenagers. It was even worse when they did it also in front of Thor who gave them an embarrassed but complicit smile that was simply even worse than the smooching session. But the worst of the worst was when Thor turned that same stupid smile to Loki who adverted his eyes most of the times. It made said smile freeze on Thor's lips. Thor was the only one to know Loki's opinion, or at least to care about it. It gave Loki's a sadistic pleasure to see Thor's hopes being constantly crushed by Loki's discreet but cold attitude. Loki simply ignored Thor's sad look each time this little scene occurred. But it was a ridiculously short release compared to the long term issue... Loki could not live under his father's roof anymore. Loki could not bear the idea of having that silly woman taking his mother's place.

Deep inside, he did not actually dislike Fran Odinson. He knew she was a kind, loving woman. But all that kindness and loveliness did not help the fact that she was slowly but surely taking Francesca Laufeyson's rightful place. And the fact that even their names sounded very similar was unbearable to Loki. When his father called her abruptly in a sing-song voice around the house, it made Loki's skin crawl for he was confused about who his father was demanding in such a loving tone. And each time, his memories got messed up and he could almost smell his mother's deep perfume in the air. And each time it broke his heart. Again, what could he do about it ?

Except for the invasion, life went on as it pretty much did. Loki woke up, had breakfast (with Thor most of the time), went to school (and Thor tagged along, of course), spent his day doing the usual courses and work (and tried as much as possible to avoid Thor and his crowd). If he had no good reason to hide at the library, he went home (sometimes he had excuses to text Thor not to wait for him but he could not use them all the time). Evenings were harder because he had no privacy now. He was supposed to go downstairs, be part of this mockery of a family, smile and be polite to avoid his father's wrath, eat at the table, answer questions, participate in the conversation...

And especially, he was avoiding thinking about his father's guns in his special closet...

He was proud of himself for keeping up the facade. It had been months since the proposal and the installation of the two impostors and he had managed to remain discreet. At least, that said a lot about himself. Yet, it didn't solve his problem. What was he supposed to do ? After long and hard thinking the answer for now was nothing. Say nothing, hear nothing, see nothing, do not make any ripple, do not create issues or conflict... Do not antagonize your father, do not raise the suspicions of Thor and his mother...

Wait till you're out of this hell.

He needed to wait till the end of the year. There he would work in an over-seas charity association or business and then enter college. He wouldn't be around this house so much and he would be too busy making a living on his own to play happy families with those people. He was done with his father. Larry had overstepped the boundaries of what was morally tolerable. Courting another woman barely a year after his supposedly beloved wife's death ? Proposing to another while she was still fresh in her grave ? Having this blond airhead and her blond oaf of a son sniffing all over the house like disgusting pets ready to pee on everything Francesca Laufeyson held dear to mark their territory... Bearing their prying and questioning, trying to “bound”, to “share” (Loki wanted to vomit each time he heard those words) with him, intruding on his privacy, on what was left of his mother and his true family... And Larry approved this horror. He even reproached Loki for being so “cold”, so “distant” while Fran and Thor were being “so kind.”

Loki did hope for everyone that his father's guns were so perfectly locked that he would never get a hold on them.

***

In all his musings, there was one thing he couldn't understand. The reason why his father had been so quick in welcoming those two burdens in their life. He understood the need not to be a widower anymore for a man largely in the prime of his life and yet, his despair at Francesca's death had been so brutal and absolute that his raising of the ashes of his dead love was equally baffling. It was as if he was overdoing it. At Fran's beck and call, ready to do all her bidding, fatherly and friendly to her son (whom he barely knew) and, of course, angry at Loki for not doing more effort to participate in this farce. There was something amiss in all his insistence. He knew his father. One tedious evening, he got the answer by accident. It happened that Loki had won the top place in an important math course (though it wasn't his forte, being usually second best) the same day Thor won several crucial matches or something, securing for a very long time his title of super-quarterback or something. Not that Loki cared but he was secretly happy that this homophobic scumbag bully Josh Randall had all his hopes of a scholarship and scouting crushed to the ground for good. Loki remembered Randall harassing some of the younger students, slamming them against the lockers only because the victims looked effeminate (according to him) and moreover because they were frailer than he was and that he could do anything he wanted and escape Scott-free, anyway. According to Loki, he deserved it. But the top grades in math had made Loki happy and mostly because it was an issue with his father, his lack of scientific spirit, he couldn't wait until he told him. Maybe it would fortify some bridges that were in peril of being seriously impaired. Except that Thor had arrived earlier and told Larry and Fran his good news first. Larry brought out the champagne and filled the crystal flutes. Those Loki had not seen in a very long time... His father was red-faced and buoyant. “There you are !” Said Larry spotting Loki in the entrance and holding a half empty flute of champagne. “ Just in time for the whole family to celebrate ! Your brother just won the last series !” And while he was laughing and chatting he paid no attention to Thor and Fran's weird confused faces. Faces Loki was too shocked to notice on his own. Your brother. He had called Thor his brother... Loki found himself lacking air. Now, he knew the reason behind this craziness.

What Larry really wanted was not only not be a widower any more. What he really wanted was a new family. A new wife to replace the ever-present ghost. A new son to replace the failing copy of said ghost. He wanted two replacements to finally feel whole. And the originals were no longer useful for him. The memory of a dead wife and the awkward presence of a resenting son too different from him and too much like her… The ghost. Loki did not make any sound or move. He had to digest this disaster, to hide his shock to avoid unwanted attention and to appear pleased to earn some time to start a plan. Mainly how to get out of here for good. And never to see any of them again. Luckily, after a little uneasiness at Larry's words, they kept on celebrating the hero boy and  forgot a bit about his less fortunate counterpart, turned into low-key sidekick. Loki swore himself he would not be degraded into comic relief…

***

As soon as he knew that his purpose was to get accepted in his dream college and to get out of this craziness for sure, Loki was more serene if he wasn't happy in any way… On his side, Thor seemed restless as the days went by and the wedding was coming closer. It was obvious something was on his mind and that he was permanently trying to talk to Loki. But said Loki was not going to help him. He carefully avoided the boy in a subtle way. He was always busy, always dodging. Yet, having Thor under his roof on a constant basis made Loki knew more about him, liked it or not. He was a kind, caring individual, actually trying to get into Loki's good graces. Even a bit discreet which was surprisingly mature and exceptional for someone who got such popularity at school. Speaking about school, that was another part of the problem. Loki discovered himself at the focus of unwanted attention. Word went by that they were stepbrothers-to-be and living under the same roof at the very least. Loki then unwillingly became the next best thing after Thor… Since he was a supposed stepladder to the school football hero. Being friends with Loki, they all presumed, was a way to get closer to Thor. Loki was suddenly surrounded by a pack of greedy, ass-licking jerks, both male and female, and all smelled of desperation and hypocrisy. Loki was invited everywhere, became everybody's friend at a such a speed that it made his head dizzy and only added to his growing dismay. Of course, they were all rejected, sometimes in a rather undiplomatic way. Yet, one of the cheerleader pack, another dolled-up, empty-minded wannabe actress/model, was after Loki (or rather after Thor by proxy…) and meant business. She started an almost aggressive campaign of finesse-lacking flirting. Now Loki had to avoid her in the same time he avoided Thor. Until the day she cornered him near the library and tried to kiss him. Loki had never had any physical interaction with someone that wasn't close to him sentimentally. The attack was so sudden he pushed her out of surprise and she landed on the ground. That wasn't a smart move but this was the last straw. Loki was out of his wits with that girl and her attitude. “What the fuck is wrong with you ?! She screamed, sincerely shocked from his rejection.             - Indeed !” He shouted back. “What the fuck is wrong with ME is that I am not a big fan of being sexually harassed ! Especially by people like YOU !              Loki wasn't that direct usually but, again, he was out of patience. The girl broke in tears that Loki thought it at first to be another trick. He knew Trish Feldman and her crew. All of them were the “mean popular girl” cliché. Up to the dark streaks of mascara running down her cheek. She heaved a huge exhausted sigh that surprised Loki. She DID look burned out after all...             - Look, I didn't want to embarrass you...” She said. “But you don't know anything about me...             - I know enough to tell you that trying to get into my pants won't help you getting into Thor's !            He was becoming aggressive because Trish was starting to act like she needed to talk. And he was in no mood to be a counselor or something.             - Har, har, smart boy !” She replied. “You don't understand. You've never been in love, I mean, REALLY in love, with anyone, am I right ?              Loki was startled by the retort. Indeed, he had never been in love. When would he have found the time ? Before his mother's death, he was happy and content with an already fulfilled life and thought only about the future. And after her death, well... He was billion years from that kind of things. So no, he had practically no experience in that field, never ever been interested in anyone, and didn't know what to answer to the crying girl.               - Right.” She went on, her head down, her voice dropping low. “You don't know what it is to be miserable all the time and pretend to be happy around everyone, everyday. You don't know what it is... to see him everywhere and even in your sleep... And to be nothing to him.”          Trish was wrong about the first part. Loki also had to pretend, although for different reasons. Yet, he was mellowing a bit. He had never seen any of the hated golden circle like that, seriously miserable, seriously distraught and absolutely sincere.              - So, okay. I was being a bitch but you have absolutely no idea of what it is to be…              - ...Part of the popular gang ?” Loki couldn't help but sneer at the spoiled girl's misery. “Well, I have noticed how terrible your lot must feel when you harass the less pretty, less popular girls. All the ‘nerds’” He did the finger gesture to emphasize the word. “ Not to mention the guys…             Trish lowered  her head. She did not look her usual prideful self.             - Okay, I get it. You’re not going to be fooled so let’s stay at that, alright ?            Hearing the girl's resigned tone of voice, Loki nodded, a little ashamed of having deepened her obvious wounds.             - Look,” He said. “If it's any consolation, your little plan wouldn't have worked, believe me...” He paused, realizing for the first time that he had known it for long. “ Thor's mom is going to marry my dad and he is overprotective of her. Right here, right now, nothing matters more to him than her.”              Trish smiled, looking a bit relieved. Loki had guessed right. The girl could swallow a lot more the fact that Thor's mother was his priority. They parted on friendly terms and Loki actually felt a little better. He had the feeling that he had actually helped someone, even though in a small way, even someone who used to be a bully... He felt a little lighter than he had been in a long time.

Until a fist grabbed him violently from behind and slammed him on the wall.

The shock made him see stars first. Then, he saw who was holding him by the arms so tight he could scream with pain. “ Having fun ?” growled the voice that used to be always gentle to him. First, he didn't recognized the crazy bear in front of him. The blue eyes that were always shining and kind were now almost red with rage. The blond, silky hair were now an angry mane. That same mouth that was always praying Loki for more kindness towards everyone was now a snarl, a grimace of pure fury, displaying white pointy teeth like a fighting bull. Thor, it was Thor but a Thor Loki had never seen, never suspected he existed. A Thor that looked ready to kill him.           - Answer me !!” Thor yelled. “ What are you doing with that bitch ?!”          Loki's brain was moving like a crazy clock. What ? What ? Whaaaaat ? The HELL ? What was he talking about ? What was wrong with him ?! It was difficult to hear what Thor was saying (screaming more like it) not to mention the fact that his forearms were really starting to burn. Thor shook him again and made hit the wall a second time. Loki was frozen with shock. This was madness.           - So, I am not even worthy to talk to but you're all lovey-dovey with a WHORE ?! The fuck is wrong with you ?           -I... I....             Part of Loki wanted to punch Thor in his lower parts for talking like that but the other part was incapable of moving, of saying anything, terrified like a trapped rabbit surrounded bdogs.            -  What can SHE do better than ME ? What does SHE have that I DON'T ?!            He was now throwing his yelling face into Loki's, his body crushing Loki's, making it almost impossible to breather, to move, to think... Loki was now feeling like he was five again, surrounded by the bullies that didn't know yet who his father was, on his first day at school.             - TELL ME !! What am I supposed to do to make you NOTICE me ?!            Thor was now totally glued to Loki's body like a furnace and his ragged breath was burning Loki's neck. Loki was feeling faint and weak in the legs. Thor could have killed him right away and Loki could not make the faintest move to protect himself. Please...            Even Loki's voice was no more than a whisper. Brutally, Thor's right hand left Loki's arm to grab his wrist and not in a more gentle way. Loki gasped, now in real terror and confusion. Look, for god's sake ! Do you want more PROOF ?!            And Thor slammed Loki's hand on his crotch. It was like feeling a rock.            Loki snapped.             - Stop ! STOP IT ! YOU'RE HURTING ME !!             And as brutally as it has started, it stopped.             Loki fell on the ground, shaking. Thor, still standing took a step backward. Loki slowly raised his head, fearing another blow, needing to see if that insane creature was indeed his stepbrother-to-be.             It was another Thor, one whose mouth and eyes were ridiculously opened in horror. A totally distraught little abuser. Another change of personality that Loki was incapable to understand in the state he was in.             - I... I am sorry.. I...” He blabbered.            “Not as sorry as you're going to be...” would have been an answer worthy of Loki's usual eloquence but now his mind was empty, unable to form a coherent thought.              - I won't... I swear I... “ He stammered again, walking backward again “I am sorry !”

            And Thor, Mr. N°One, the Mighty Thor, ran pitiously away from his victim.             Loki was left, crouching against the wall, eyes dry but shaking like a leaf and his body burning.

[burmecianblackmage]

I miss you~ (Because I am an evil person)

Send me "I miss you" to know what my muse will say after 1 year, 5 years, then to 10 years after your muse's death.

"...yeah, the mission went easy-peasy, a real breeze! We even finished early! There was absolutely no need for both of us to come here, so I’m really glad you stayed home with Leander, dear! How has our little man been? Can you get him on the phone for me?”

“I’d love to, dear... but he feel asleep a good hour ago. He’s been very busy today, you know? And he can’t wait to show it to his mommy!”

“Hehe, awww, such a cutie! I can’t wait to see you both again, love.”

“Me neither, dear... But gladly, you’ll be home soon.”

“Uh huh! Sooner than we thought, even! Since we finished early, I figured I could take the earlier train back home! After all, I can’t leave you two alone for too long, right?”

“Hey, we’ve been doing alright... for the most part, at least. Of course we miss you, dear. But I can promise you, I’ve taken good care of our son!”

“You better have! He’s our only son, after all!” For now, at least...

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean now?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing! Don’t worry love, I trust you. I know just how good a father you are... I’d never doubt you being able to take good care of our boy!”

”Oh you.... teasing me again, huh? Just you wait till you’re back home, Selphie. I’ll repay the favor and tease you till you beg me to stop, hehe...”

“Oh my... who says I’d ever tell you to stop...?”

“Oh you...”

“Hehehehe, well, if I want to catch the early train, I should probably go to bed now!”

“Probably...”

“Mmhm... sorry love, but your teasing will have to wait until I’m home...”

“You know I wouldn’t have it any other way...”

“Oh Sceada...”

Oh Selphie... I love you...”

“I love you too... I’ll be home real soon, okay? Oh, and when I get home, I got a big surprise for you!”

“Ohh? Now you’re making me curious dear. Did you buy some souvenirs to bring home?”

“Mmhm... not exactly... or, well, I did. But that’s not the surprise! It’s more... you know.... or maybe a bit of a mix of the two...”

“Okay, now you’ve got me really curious, love.”

“Hehe, hurray, success! But you still have to wait, hehe!”

“Heh... I will. Have a safe trip back, my love. I can’t wait to see you again...”

“Me neither... I’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Uh huh. Goodnight Selphie... I love you.”

“I love you too, Sceada. Goodnight dear!”

Little do they know that this is the last phone call they’ll ever share...

"This can’t be true... it... it simply can’t be...”

“...it is. We just got the call... They... they say they already identified her...”

“No... no, that... impossible...”

“I don’t wanna believe it either, Rinoa.... but... but they say there’s no doubt...”

“But... not Selphie. There’s no way...And on a train? That’s just... just...”

“I know... but... unbelievable as it sounds... it... it’s the truth...”

“No... not... not Selphie... Irvine, please, they must be wrong! There... there must be a mix-up!”

“No... they said... they said she was identified without a doubt... the train crash was heavy, but the bodies... the bodies are mostly intact, so...”

“Don’t. Irvine, please. Don’t... don’t say another word... I don’t... I don’t wanna hear it...”

“I know... but... we... we can’t just sit here... we... we need to tell them. Need to tell him....”

“Oh no... No, this... it’ll break his heart...”

“I know, but... but we don’t have a choice... it’s our duty... as members of SeeD...”

“But what about...? If... if we tell him about that as well, it will destroy him... And what about Leander? Who’s going to tell him his mother isn’t coming back?”

“...Sceada will have to... As hard as it is... he will need to be there for Leander. His son... his son needs him now... more than ever...”

“But if we tell him about that, I don’t think he could handle it! It would break him!”

”In that case... we have no choice but not to tell him...”

“...this is just too cruel... Why... why did this have to happen...? Why to her? Why now?”

“I know, Rinoa... I know... It’s just not fair... She’d been so happy... so excited... and now...”

“Now we’ll never get to see her smile again...”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

She was supposed to arrive at the train station like she always had, and to see her boys waiting for her with a wide smile. Sceada would have little Leander riding on his shoulders, holding a little card they had made themselves together, reading “Welcome Home Mommy” - Oh, how had the three year old boy been proud of this card, how eager to show it to his mother!

But the train never arrived, and with it, so too did Selphie not arrive.

And no matter how many hours they had waited, she never would arrive, never would return again....

1 year later

"I still can’t believe it... I... I don’t want to believe it... Why did it have to be you...? Why did it have to be this way...? It’s just not fair...”

The man before the small grave was barely recognizable, compared to merely a year ago. Back then, he had been well-kempt and dressed cleanly, with a wide smile on his face and his son’s tiny hands being the sole reason his hair was a bit messy. Now, however, he looked worse for wear, a truly worrying sight, as he sat there in front of her grave, in the middle of the pouring rain.

Oh how much things could change over a year... and all just because of a single, ill-fated moment...

“I never should have let you go on this mission... never should have let you take that train... why did it have to be this train... why... why did it have to be a train at all? You always loved trains so much... it’s just not right... it’s just not right that you’d have to die in a train crash of all things...”

They still hadn’t found the reason for the crash, a whole year after the accident. It was both pathetic and painful. How could they not find the reason? How could they leave him to suffer like that for this long? It just wasn’t right... it’d never be right...

“I miss you... I miss you so much... It’s been so hard without you... Leander.... Leander he misses you too, he’s always so sad, it... I... I...”

The Burmecian’s words would be interrupted by his own sniffling and sobbing. He truly was a sorry sight... It was fortunate that his son didn’t have to see him like this.

“It’s hard... but... but we’re trying... I’m trying... to raise him like you would have... and he’s such a good boy... Rinoa and Irvine... they... they help me, where they can... They’re also the ones watching Leander right now... I... I know you would have liked to see him again, but I... I... I just... I just couldn’t... Forgive me, my love...”

He would stay in front of her grave for hours, crying many a bitter tear while he spoke with her, until day would fade into night...

5 years later

"I never should have let you go... if only I had known... if only you had told me... I... I’d never... and then... and Leander would still have his mother, and... and...”

Once again the Burmecian is crying bitter tears in front of his wife’s grave, much like he had the first year, whereas the years before he had fared better. Yes, just last year, he had even taken Leander along for this day. But this year was different. This year, all the pain, all the sorrow... it had come back, and grown only larger.

For almost exactly five years after the accident, the authorities had released all the evidence they had still held onto, thus returning Selphie’s belongings to her family at last. And while this was meant to be the moment where all the questions finally were over and answered, where the investigation was closed and they could finally come to terms with it all and part from the last things left behind, there had been one item he never expected among her belongings. One item which changed it all.

A pair of new baby clothes.

They couldn’t have been Leander’s, for he knew them all, knew every last piece, and this one had not been among them. So it was one Selphie must have bought, quite recently before her much too sudden and early passing, and that... that had left only one conclusion. One terrible, heartbreaking conclusion...

“Why didn’t you tell me... why... if I had known... if I had known that you were pregnant again... I never would have let you go on this mission... You would never have boarded that train, and we... we would still be... you would still be... we...”

The baby clothes in his hands were damp from his tears already, yet once again he is hurting so much, he cannot help but bury his face against them, staining them even further with tears.

At first, he didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want it to be true. But when he asked Rinoa, and later Irvine, they had admitted to the truth, confirming his worst fears.

She had only recently learnt of the second child growing within her, mere days before she left for that mission, and she had told her two dearest friends. Not because she had wished to hide it from him, not because it would have been too soon after Leander, no, nothing the like. She had been so happy, had smiled so brightly, as brightly as only a mother-to-be could, and she had been so ecstatic to have another child. And she had wanted to surprise him with the happy news.

That’s why she had insisted on taking this mission alone, despite them both having been requested. That’s why she had convinced him to let her go, rather than staying with Leander herself while he’d take care of it. She wanted to prepare this surprise for him and Leander alike, wanted to go on one more mission. It might have been her last, after all.

And it had been, but for a much more devastating reason than becoming a mother again...

“Why did this have to happen...? Why this accident...? Why, oh gods, why? Why have you taken from me not only the love of my life... but also my child...?”

The fact that he had lost even more on that day, 5 years ago, than he ever knew... it was enough to break him, to render him a sobbing mess for many a day.

And if it had not been for sweet, 8 year old Leander, who not only needed him but also cheered him up again, who knows whether Sceada would ever have smiled again...

10 years later

10 years... it was such a long time, and it felt so unreal. Especially, when it all still felt so close to him.

True, the pain had lessened, and though it had been more than just difficult, he had eventually come to accept the unchangeable. But some things would never change. LIke how much he missed her, how much he longed to see her again, even though he knew it was impossible. Or how fondly he’d remember her, how she had loved him, how she had made him happy, made him smile. And last but not least... how much he loved her.

He would never stop loving her, never stop being thankful for all she had given him, from her love to her affection, all the way to Leander. And speaking of the by now 13 year old boy...

“C’mon dad! We shouldn’t let Mom and Sis wait!”

Leander was doing great, and he had grown into a splendid boy, a young man even. And he had helped his father to overcome the heartbreaking realization that Selphie had been with child when she died, in a way likely only he could have.

Soon after having been told about it, when both his father as well as Auntie Rinoa and Uncle Irvine had deemed him old enough to understand it, the boy had decided that the second child had been his sister. The gender of the unborn child had never been determined, for it had been much too early still, but no one had the heart to tell him so - and somehow, strangely enough, it had helped them all come to term with it all better, had made it more real.

And so, they had buried the baby clothes right next to Selphie’s grave, turning it from his mother’s grave into the graves of both his mom and sister for Leander.

Sceada would have never thought that this would help him feel better, but ultimately, it had. And though Selphie’s death was still saddening and a heavy burden on him, he could at least face her grave with a smile now.

“I’m coming, Leander. Just give me some time, I’m not as fast on my feet as you are, you know that. Feel free to go ahead if you want to.”

“Okay dad, thank you!”

And so the boy would run ahead, up the hill to where the gravestone stood marking his mothers grave, and the little wooden cross right next to hit, devoted to his sister.

By the time Sceada would arrive there as well, the boy would already be deep in his conversation with them both.

“...and you know mom, there’s this girl in school who keeps picking on me, and some of my friends say she does that because she likes me! Uncle Irvine thinks so too! But isn’t that stupid? Or is that really a thing girls do? Did you pick on dad too when you first met? He never mentions anything like it, at least, so I think it’s not true! After all, if you love each other, you’re not supposed to pick on each other, right? What do you think, sis?”

The Burmecian could only chuckle at hearing all of this, and would patiently wait his turn while Leander would happily talk about school, living with his dad, that one girl as well as his Auntie and Uncle. Everything going on in his young life. And once he’s done, once he’s told her everything he wanted to, that he needed to - including even stuff about another girl he hadn’t even told his father about yet, a “real cutie, just like you and Sis were!”, as he put it, bringing a tear to Sceada’s eyes - he’d carefully hug the cold gravestone and hold it close for a good few minutes.

“I miss you, mom... I wish you could be here with me and dad... I wish you could see me... and I could see you again... I love you, mommy... I always will...”

Following this, the boy would seek comfort in his father’s arms, the Burmecian holding him tightly and patting his back, before it’d then be his turn. And when the time had come, he too would walk up to the grave, sitting down in front of it, and placing a small candle right next to the stone.

“Hey Selphie... Did you miss me...? I know I missed you... Very much so... But Leander and I, we’re doing well. We try to smile each day, like you would have wanted us too... I’m taking good care of him... - well, as good as I can, I mean.... How is it on your end...? Are you looking after our cute little girl...? How is she...?”

And so he would tell her about life and about missing her, shedding a couple of tears while he was at it. But when the time came to head back home, both of Selphie’s boys would stand before her grave with a smile.

Just like she would have wanted.

~~~~

[dbtrilogy2]

Im Sorry(24)

Rebecca

Shaking my hair around snatching my glasses off I take a second scoping out the restaurant.

"You beat me here...how embarrassing."

A bitter chuckle leaves my lips. We get a table far from everyone else by my request. He pulled my chair out. I walk around sitting in the next chair.

"Can I start you all with anything?"

"I'll have a beer anything is fine just not lite and...."

"Two shots of Hennessy."

I'm here for one reason and one only. Soon as the waiter left he try's sparking up a conversation.

"New hair I like it."

"Mmhm." I take back my shots soon as their placed down.

"I'm glad you uh agreed to meeting me. Look um I just...I don't even know. You know I love you it was a mistake telling you what I did like that and I most defiantly regret it. To this day I can't get that look of hurt and betrayal you gave me that day. A second chance would be nice since we've been through it all together you had my back before all the money and fame but I know you deserve better so I won't be completely upset if you decide not to you know go with it. Whatever you wanna do I'm for it."

I've prepared for this moment as much as a person can. Mentally yes my mind has already decided fuck him and that island whore get my money take care of my kids. Emotionally on the other hand....after all he's my husband and the father of my kids. We've been together for so long and this is technically the first real bump in our relationship. I want to take him back with open arms but then I think about this whole situation all over again.

"Funny thing is you said something similar before we started therapy. I thought we just needed to talk have someone to be the mediator so things don't get out of hand or to help each other see the other side. Never would I had even began to think it would've reveal things so deep and in only a few visits."

"You know baby I never wanted to go in the first place but like always I made a sacrifice for you. I always put you first babe you mean everything to me."

He reached over taking my hand. Did he really just try to say this is my fault? I sit up straight taking my water in the hand he tried to reach for.

"Were you with her the days you went ghost?" I already knew he was but this was just gonna determined my next move.

"Honestly yes. She's a break from reality for me. I know it's not what you want to hear but if we really are gonna work this out honesty had to be present. "

"Oh what you had some kind of vacation with the woman you cheated on me with. You thought the best way to deal with a marital problem was to spend time with the cause of said problems?" He stutters over his words. "How stupid do you think I am?"

"Baby-"

"No...I don't want to hear any excuse you have I don't want to try and work this out anymore. I'm not gonna be a solo puller in this your not gonna make me look stupid because you no longer love me or your family."

"I do-"

"You don't. So here's what gonna happen I will file and all you need to do is sign your name. You'll see the kids if they want to see you I won't ask for child support or anything like that. I'm wiping my hands with you after basically forcing myself to stick it through for my kids. I refuse to stay when you don't to."

"Camila took chris back I don't understand why we can't just work through this. That's what married couples do they work together." His points at me starting to breath heavier. "Rebecca....baby please I'm begging you."

"You can't compare us to other Carlton. And even if I was to this still would be different because one: he confessed to his mistake right after it happened, two: he worked to right his wrong and most importantly he didn't go back to who he cheated with in fact he basically cut her off out of respect for his wife. If you would've done that like I asked before we hopefully wouldn't be here! God Carlton just be a man for once and own up to what you did."

We sat here for what felt so long. I never would've thought we would be here in this position. It was suppose to be till death do us part. Turns out all it takes is a island witch to do us part.

My phone vibrates from my lap.

Ted:I'm here

"Clearly you have nothing to say so I'm going to be on with the rest of my day." Putting shades on I stand hooking my purse on my arm.

As I walk pass him he pulls on my bag.

"Look I'm sorry things turned out like this."

"Are you really? People who are sorry try to fix what they've done. You didn't come look for me you did call...you ran right into her arms just like she wanted you to. I'm not about to fight a bitch over a dick. If your so called "sorry" prove it but don't waste my time. She so important then stay there." ........ Wiping my face I chuckle. Ted hands me a tissue. "I can't believe I'm still crying over this nigga. It's not worth it he's not worth it. I'm a fucking jewel a one of a kind."

"One can stay for so long. He's your husband father to your children you care and love this man. It's not gonna be a hop and skip to get over a heartbreak and betrayal. It's healthy to release these tears and pain so that you don't bottle it up becoming bitter I don't want that to taint your beauty."

He came by my shop to help with a couple things like lighting and what not. Soon as I got here it's just like I couldn't hold it any longer. I didn't want Carlton to see me like this hell I don't want Ted to see me. But at this moment with how hurt I am I'd rather get it all out over bottling it up. I don't want to become bitter like he said. Then she wins....technically she already has.

    Mona

Covering my face I rush into the police station with pissed off parents behind me. The officers in front held off the camera men best they could but these people are just ruthless.

I was discharged from the hospital last night but have to come in today to give my side of what happen and identify who did it. It's so many emotions running through my head I didn't even sleep last night. Just cried and cried. I feel so stupid.

For believing he actually liked me and wanted me. For turning on my own sister. And mostly betraying my parents trust in me. They haven't said much to me since the hospital. After getting the test results back it showed I didn't get anytime of STD or anything but what I was drugged with did some damage to my kidneys. Mom cried more than I did probably hearing that and dad he just looked at me.

"You all can wait here while I get the detectives on your case." The cop sat us in one of those rooms with a two way mirror.

I played with my sleeves nervously.

"Mona after this when we get home I need you to pack some clothes us your gonna stay with your grandparents for a while just until all this dies down. You'll do all your school work online for the rest of this quarter." Dad said speaking for the first time since last night.

I nod wiping my face. Two men in suits come in. One hands me a bottle of apple juice and a donut. "Goodmorning Mr and Mrs Washington. Goodmorning Mona...we hope this to be a quick process so you don't have to be here longer than needed. We've already gotten more than enough eye witnesses who were at the party now we just need some details from you. And please let us know everything and be completely honest."

They say putting a recorder on the table in front of me. "Are you comfortable with your parents being in the room?"

I nod. "Yes."

"Alright let's get right to it. How did you meet the student involved?"

"He's my ex boyfriends older brother. I only saw him when he would come home from college."

"How did the relationship began?"

Both mom and dad sat behind me watching close. "I-I noticed him looking at me when he'd pick up his brother and a few times I would go to their house he would smile and wink at me a lot. I decided to break up with my boyfriend and it just went from there."

"What was the relationship like?"

"Well um it was kept a secret so we mostly hung in his car. He would come to my school during lunch or after cheer practice. I would tell my parents I was with a friend or had detention."

"Ok now parents this may be hard to hear these next few questions but please just keep it together so we can get the answers needed. Now Mona before the events were you two sexually active together?"

They are gonna kill me. "Uh we um...it was only oral. The night at the party was the first time he tried more than that."

"Did you ever feel like you could possibly be in danger anytime with him?"

"No he made me feel mature always telling me how I'm not like girls my age and how different I am. I thought he really had some kind of feelings for me but then he laid it on me that he has a girlfriend. I felt so stupid but stayed...clearly I was doing something she wasn't I was important to him so much that he'd risk his relationship."

"But not his reputation since your relationship was clearly a secret. You didn't think that might've been a wake up call. Your only fourteen what could possibly make you feel like you needed this attention so bad you went looking in the wrong places?" The other detective asked. This was the first thing he's said since walking in.

"I became jealous of my sister I thought everyone liked her more than me then my parents started working a little more than usual. Just me being the spoiled brat I've always been."

"So are you saying your parents basically pushed you into the arms of this predator?"

"No! I'd never say that I lied about everything to them they believed me because well I'm their daughter. My mom tried to I guess patch things up but I ditched our plans."

Just thinking how I cried to her about feeling left out then ditched her. Anything could've happened that night I'd possibly would've never been able to spend time with her ever again.

"Now just tell me about this night in question and how it all reaches the point of you being in the hospital."

As much as I really don't want to relive this I have to.

"Um...my friend and I got picked up from her house by Shawn and a friend of his. We got to the party and it was so many people I felt out of place almost like people could tell I wasn't suppose to be there. He left me to get us drinks basically forcing it down on me. I think I was two or three cups in before I started feeling almost like I was on a boat I couldn't keep my balance for anything."

"You were drunk?"

"Yes and he took me to the kitchen to get more but that's when two of his friends came over and asking what he was doing with me because they recognized me being my parents are famous."

"Were one of the friends a female?"

"Yes she was the one that offered to help me. I don't remember anything after that."

Mom came over holding me against her chest crying. I hugged her back as dad came in.

"I'm sorry...I-I didn't...I didn't know."

"You did great Mona all we need now is for you to confirm who we have is the one responsible."

They took us to a similar room being on the other side.

"I don't even know this girl I met her at the party how was I suppose to know she was underage!!"

He's denying me?

"Look kid there is so much we have on you it's really pointless to deny anything at this point."

"Ok ok I did know her but...she told me she was eighteen."

"He's lying....why is he doing this?" More tears began staining my cheeks.

"We've seen enough can we go now?" Dad pulled me away from the mirror.

"We just wait for a court date. Thank you all for coming in today I hope you are able to get through this."

Putting my hood back up we rushed out the station to the waiting car. I hate that I did this to them. I've basically shamed my family. I don't think sorry is enough anymore.

[ulyssesredux]

Cyclops

If you are not proud of your cellar, there is a gentleman who may fall in love?

From the belfries far and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance.

Isn't he a cousin of his old fellow's was pewopener to the pope. You are now reaping the consequences.

Yes, says J.J. It implies that he is of good family? But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint.

Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful. They're not European, says the citizen. The traitor's son. But if the Almighty's allowed it, he means to punish him for it!

Are we going to win? And I don't mean to say, Fred Vincy has been getting somebody to advance him money on what he says he knows about my will, eh?

So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his jaws. —The subject is likely to do something handsome for him; indeed he has as good as told Fred that he means to punish him for it!

Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77,78,79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Clarence, who was a sailor every inch of him, and direct evidence was furnished not only by myself, but by innocent Mrs. After him, Garry! Tchah! And Alf was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob on Throwaway and he's gone to gather in the shekels. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight. I'd known, a wagon and six horses shouldn't have drawn me from Brassing. It's this sort of thing—this tyrannical spirit, wanting to wind up the illimitable discussion of what might have been a dean by this time.

Mr. Thesiger was in the glass or out, and yet have griped you the next day.

—And it's this: God A'mighty sticks to the land.

Says I. However, there's no knowing what a mixture will turn out beforehand. —Drinking his own stuff? They're a deal too cunning to be found, I left him to it at the Saracen's Head; but his name is? —Who said Christ is good? What say you, good masters, said the banker. To us! I.

Blind to the world. Says J.J. Raping the women and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted round the mouth of his cannon? That's the new Messiah for Ireland! A lot of Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing at a Sambo strung up in a tree with his tongue out and a bonfire under him.

—A most scandalous thing!

In this way it came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the halls of law. As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse.

Anybody might have had to say his prayers at Botany Bay.

—Pity about her, says I. He eat me my sugars. We can't wait. At least, Fred, let me advise you not to fall in love with you, says the citizen.

She was seated, as she observed, on her own brother's name had been made free with my name.

Pisser releasing his boots out of the pint when I saw him before I met you, says Martin.

—I say I've seen drops myself as made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of Mrs. Be brave, Fred. If your mamma is afraid that Fred will make me an offer, tell her that.

You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Lydgate. As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, and a large forehead. Says the citizen. Mr. Hawley's mode of speech, even when public decorum repressed his awful language, was formidable in its curtness and self-possession.

He told me when they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like a poker. Then by that, it's o' no use who your father and mother of a beating. Thus, in riding home, both the brother and the sister were preoccupied and inclined to be silent.

Mr. Vincy mostly trades on the Bank money; and you may see yourself, brother, and that he won his fortune by dishonest procedures—or else to withdraw from posts in which we at any rate, to be called Featherstone's Alms-Houses, and to be built on a piece of the road with every one.

Cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty trencherman by his aspect. Mr. Farebrother, who was also sole executor, and who was to take thenceforth the name of James Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers about flogging on the training ships at Portsmouth.

—Nannan? In this way it came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the halls of law. Ring the bell, said Mr. Limp, a meditative shoemaker, with weak eyes and a piping voice.

She is the best girl I know.

Five days after the death of Raffles, and the old testament, and hugging and smugging. Mr. Bambridge delivered his narrative in the hearing of seven.

And says Bloom: What say you, good masters, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is founded, as I was saying, the old cur after him backing his luck with his mangy snout up. Says the citizen. He could not see a man sink close to him for want of help. Ah!

A couched spear of acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was for many years engaged in nefarious practices, and that light way of laughing at everything, it's very unbecoming. Then, he himself hated having to go round after the old stuttering fool.

Ireland free. And that's what his religion means: he wants God A'mighty to come in for a bit of the lingo: Conspuez les Français, says Lenehan. With his mailed gauntlet he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard, by those privileged burghers who happened to be in his immediate entourage, to murmur to himself in a faltering undertone: God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart.

Plundered. I first picked him up, said Bambridge, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse Ulex Europeus. He answered with a main cry: Abba! But—those expectations!

Look to our steeds. Did you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush? The noblest, the truest, says he, trying to muck out of it, said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his hands into his pockets, the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed and the two shawls killed with the laughing. I shall discharge the office you entrust to me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of the cup.

And then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a wet rag. Mr. Hopkins.

Give us your blessing.

I was to be held in the Town-Hall on a sanitary question which had risen into pressing importance by the occurrence of a cholera case in the town was used to at meetings of this sort, rose and asked leave to deliver his opinion. —There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf. Said Mrs. Mr. Lydgate there?

Cried crack till he brought him home as drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him the evils of alcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn't near roast him, it's a queer story, the old one, Bloom's wife and Mrs O'Dowd that kept the hotel. —He's got no land hereabout that ever I heard tell of.

Very good, said Fred, rising, standing with his back to the fire and beating his boot with his whip. I was born here.

And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a spider's web in the corner having a great confab with himself and that bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him a yard long for more. It's the Russians wish to tyrannise. —You don't believe that Mr. Lydgate was haughty; but il y en a pour tous les gouts, as little Mamselle used to say, Mr. Vincy determined to speak with a more chiselled emphasis—the subject is likely to be actively concerned, but in which your sympathetic concurrence may be an aid to me.

I don't know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on, that you do, believes in his religion whatever it may be: you could turn over your capital just as fast with cursing and swearing: plenty of fellows do. —Well, says the citizen.

Why shouldn't they dig the man up and have the Crowner?

The gold-headed cane is farcical considered as an acknowledgment to me; but happily I am above mercenary considerations. What did this fellow say about Bulstrode?

The blessing of God and the secret of England's greatness, graciously presented to him by the whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about Ehren on the Rhine and come where the boose is cheaper. —Twenty to one, says Martin. The delegation, present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone the semiparalysed doyen of the party. Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate, is of a broader kind.

Right, says John Wyse, what I came here to talk about was a little affair of my young scapegrace, Fred's. He was not a man who knows most of what goes on in Middlemarch. —We don't want him, says he. I'm the alligator.

It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Middlemarch, said Lydgate, following her with his eyes shut, who wrote the new testament, and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom sticking in an odd word. But here Mr. Jonah Featherstone made himself heard.

—Anyhow, says Joe.

Here, give me your arm.

I'll make no order for payment.

I shall discharge the office you entrust to me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of the cup.

—Who?

And then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as limp as a wet rag. Fred answered, with a sudden gesture of his fore-finger.

—You?

Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one as blind as the fellow that won't see, if you please, that I stretch my tolerance towards you as my wife's brother, and that makes other people jealous.

—Nannan's going too, says Bloom. The chief objection to them is, that in virtue of the cooperation between us which I now look forward to, you will not mind the cold for a little while, said Mary, lighting up. Come, out with it, Jane! Aloud she said, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the hapless young lady, requesting her to name the day, and was taken as information coming straight from Garth, so that even a diligent historian might have concluded Caleb to be the wrong thing. Not that, like her, he had a farm in the county Down off a hop-of-my-thumb by the name of Him Who is from everlasting that they would do His rightwiseness. The second will revoked everything except the legacies to the low persons before mentioned some alterations in these being the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family would do anything for him, and would have done well—had got preferment already, but that he was now on the path of pr l ya or return but was still submitted to trial at the hands of certain bloodthirsty entities on the lower astral levels. I.

Dollop, indignantly.

Tchah! God and kiss the book.

In a very short time Stone Court was cleared of well-brewed Featherstones and other long-accustomed visitors. And says John Wyse. They'd need have some money, eh? With Dignam, says Alf.

I have chosen is to work well in my own profession. —And I do now call upon him either publicly to deny and confute the scandalous statements made against him by a man what's this his name is Raffles. He had not borrowed money in that way, for excellent reasons.

—Those are nice things, says the citizen, jeering. A most romantic incident occurred when a handsome young Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, requesting her to name the day, and was taken as information coming straight from Garth, so that in the castle. Perhaps the person who felt the most throbbing excitement at this moment was Mary Garth, in the first instance, invited a select party, including the fact about Will Ladislaw, with some difficulty; breaking into a severe fit of coughing that required Mary Garth to stand near him, so that she did not wish to enjoy their good opinion. There's nothing very surprising in the matter and the citizen scowling after him and the old towser growling, letting on to cry: A most scandalous thing! —Not men who themselves use low instruments to carry out their ends—whose profession is a tissue of chicanery—who have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst.

Still running, says he. For a few moments there was total silence, while every man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. Waule has been telling uncle that Fred is very unsteady. —A codicil to this latter will, bearing date March 1,1828.

—Any gent who could disprove this statement being offered the privilege of calling Mr. Bambridge by a very ugly name until the exercise made his throat dry. An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage. Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of Eire, O. If one raskill said it, it's more reason why another should.

I suppose; and I am not at all sorry; on the contrary, he rather enjoyed the zest of a little curiosity in his own chamber, gave his rede and master Justice Andrews, sitting without a jury in the probate court, weighed well and pondered the claim of the first duke of Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse, Fingal's Cave—all these moving scenes are still there for us today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time.

I do now call upon him either publicly to deny and confute the scandalous statements made against him by a man now dead, and who died in his house—the statement that he was now on the path of pr l ya or return but was still submitted to trial at the hands of a dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. The soldier got to business, leading off with a powerful left jab to which the Irish gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of Bennett's jaw.

The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing it.

Go on, Bambridge, said Mr. Standish. Says Alf.

What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and girls and flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can out of them.

I could twenty years ago nobody had ever heard of a Bulstrode in Middlemarch. —I will use no severer word—has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other folly in the world, say so. Adonai!

This hard-headed old Overreach approved of the sentimental song, as the devil said to the dead policeman. He says they might prove over and over again whose child this young Ladislaw was, and they'd do no more than the reflex of his own guesses, and the fact that at this critical moment he had given up Bulstrode's affairs in consequence, said so a few hours later to Mr. Toller. That's a straw.

You two misses go away, said Mr. Standish. There rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. Waule continued, finding some relief in this communication. Moya.

Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him. This hard-headed old Overreach approved of the sentimental song, as the devil said to the dead policeman.

Cows in Connacht have long horns. And he sat him there about the hour of five o'clock to administer the law of the house of Toller, who mentioned the loan to Mrs.

For trading without a licence. 7 Hunter Street, Liverpool. It's a good gentlemanly game; and young Vincy is not a clergyman in this country who has greater talents. Thither the extremely large wains bring foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun. So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says they're all of one mind to get off the mark to hundred shillings is five quid and when they were in the dark horse pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was stopping there at two in the morning all the ordinary currents of conjecture were disturbed by the presence of a strange mourner who had plashed among them as if from the moon. All for number one. And, not poor, she added, dimpling, it is naturally painful to me and my brother Solomon last night when he called coming from market to give me advice about the old wheat, me being a widow, and my son John only three-and-twenty Mary had certainly not attained that perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to the less fortunate girl, as if he were putting his sign-manual to that association of himself with Bulstrode, of which something like this scene was the necessary beginning. What's your name, sir? J.J. We have Edward the peacemaker now. —Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To be sure, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look judicial. Said Mrs. And entering he blessed the viands and the beverages and the company of all the blessed answered his prayers. It does not follow that Fred must be one. Let me alone, says he.

With who? Waule in it, I understand how yellow can have been worn for mourning.

Defrauding widows and orphans.

No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which actuate your conduct and I shall keep my bank-notes than with the more distant prospect of the land of bondage. Our own fault. Good old doggy! Not at all, says John Wyse. Do you know what I'm telling you. —Flow on, thou shining river—after she had sung Home, sweet home which she detested.

Mr Cowe Conacre Multifarnham. Nat.: Arising out of the canvas with intelligent honesty. She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Meanwhile, Mr. Vincy burst out very bluntly. I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off of the poor lad till he yells meila murder. Says Bloom, for the wife's admirers.

I am by the side of Bulstrode. Says Alf.

Exclaimed Mr. Hopkins. Mr. Dill affected to laugh in a complimentary way at Mrs. I must call to thank him. Leave the court immediately, sir. The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero.

—How did that Canada swindle case go off? But he felt his neck under Bulstrode's yoke; and though he resisted the suggestion that it had been consciously accepted in any way as a bribe, he had been weaving any future in which their lots were united; but a man naturally remembers a charming girl with pleasure, and is willing to dine where he may see her again. —That God had disowned him before men and left him unscreened to the triumphant scorn of those who were glad to have their hatred justified—the sense of being an own sister and getting little, while somebody else was to have the like handsome sum, which, as the saturnine cousin observed, was a new legatee; else why was he bidden as a mourner? I. —Not taking anything between drinks, says I, in his recklessness and ignorance—I will use no severer word—has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other folly in the world. The scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be narrated by me about low people, may be lifted to the level of high commercial transactions by the inexpensive addition of proportional ciphers.

Throwaway, says he. To cool my courage, And my guts red roaring After Lowry's lights. Gone but not forgotten. I was just round at the court? Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard. Hence Bulstrode felt himself providentially secured. Dignam, says Alf. Aloud she said, with affectionate sadness. —Perfectly true, says Bloom.

Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence.

Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney's moustaches, the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal Zouave to the Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street.

The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect.

And calling himself a Frenchy for the shawls, Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and giving out as the Ten Commandments are not enough for him, and wants him out o' the parish.

Hence Bulstrode felt himself providentially secured. As a medical man I could have sworn it was him.

And Bloom explaining he meant on account of it being cruel for the wife having to go and speak to his uncle Bulstrode, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said to his wife.

Visszontlátásra! When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied species made much private remark on each other, and were chiefly fixed either on the spots in the table-cloth or on Mr. Standish's bald head; excepting Mary Garth's. It was not the less agreeable an object in the distance.

By what I can understan', there's them knows more than they should know about how he got there. Waule who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of the law led forth from their donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended in consequence of uncomfortable suggestions.

—Ireland, says Bloom. The courthouse is a blind. I'm of sound mind—can reckon compound interest in my head, and remember every fool's name as well as everywhere else. —Old Troy, says I.

Precisely. She might have waited till I did ask her.

Your nephew John never took to billiards, now, he'd make a fool of yourself, my dear sir, said Fred, who had been talking about him; and if Mary Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he waiting for what the sky would drop in the way of drink.

Antitreating is about the time of the Barmecides. Only Paddy was passing there, I tell you? He was not fond of solitary contemplation, but he had only just come out of the Fens—he couldn't touch a penny. Says he, preaching and picking your pocket. And the Saviour was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. No security. Fletcher; 'for what's more against one's stomach than a man coming and making himself bad company with his religion, and giving out as the Ten Commandments are not enough for him, and before Bulstrode himself suspected the betrayal of his secrets. The eldest, that sits there, is but nineteen—so I leave you to guess.

He now felt the conviction that this man who was leaning tremblingly on his arm, had given him the thousand pounds as a bribe, he had been in no hurry about, for Rosamond at breakfast had mentioned that she thought her uncle Featherstone had taken the new doctor will be able to pay your father at once and make everything right. And here I am naturally led to reflect on the means of elevating a low subject. —Hair of infantine fairness, neither flaxen nor yellow. By God, then, he was forced to take Old Harry into his counsel, and Old Harry's been too many for him. We know what put English gold in his pocket. Mr. Lydgate's horse passed the window.

But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was necessarily dominant, though it might lead to unpleasantness.

There he is again, says Joe. But when papa has been at the expense of educating him for it! Yes, sir, says he. —It is not an easy thing even to thread a path for principles in the intricacies of the world—still less to make the thread clear for the careless and the scoffing.

—Who are you laughing at? Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for the development of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer's firkins and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great hundreds, various in size, the agate with this dun.

—Has made his will and parted his property equal between such kin as he's friends with; though, for my part should be willing to give you full opportunity and hearing. Here you are, says Terry.

Waule had said anything about me? Cheers.—There's the man, says he.

But I can alter my will yet. He said, turning first toward Mr. Thesiger, turning to the pallid trembling man; I must so far concur with what has fallen from Mr. Hawley in expression of a general feeling, as to think it due to your Christian profession that you should clear yourself, if possible, from unhappy aspersions. Says Terry. Those are nice things, says the citizen,—Beg your pardon, sir, you've been paying ten per cent for money which you've promised to pay off by mortgaging my land when I'm dead and gone, eh?

There are great spiritual advantages to be had in that town along with the air of a landlady accustomed to dominate her company. Faith, he was forced to admit, that he was now on the path of pr l ya or return but was still submitted to trial at the hands of a dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. —And a very good initial too, says the citizen. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life. —After him, Garry! These are the things that make the gamut of joy in landscape to midland-bred souls—the things they toddled among, or perhaps learned by heart standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely. Says Alf, laughing. Perfide Albion! No, said Mary. —Half one, Terry, says Joe.

They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, and in that way led him out of the door.

—Hairy Iopas, says the citizen.

Plundered.

He gives land, and then added, in politic appeal to his uncle's vanity, That is hardly a thing for a gentleman to ask. So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his gullet and, gob, you could hear him lapping it up a mile off.

No, says Joe, tonight. The doctors can't master that cough, brother. The deafening claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle.

Says Joe, throwing down the letters. Considerable amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and M-ll-g-n who sang The Night before Larry was stretched in their usual mirth-provoking fashion.

When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy?

Waule, in the lowest of her woolly tones, while she turned her crape-shadowed bonnet towards Mr. Trumbull's ear. Says there's great talk of his cleverness. Talking about new Ireland he ought to be. —That's so, says Lenehan. Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. Wonder did he put that bible to the same use as I would. All wind and piss like a tanyard cat. He says they might prove over and over again whose child this young Ladislaw was, and they'd do no more than the reflex of his own guesses, and the one out of it: Or also living in different places. Said Lydgate.

Frailty, thy name is Sceptre.

Gob, Jack made him toe the line. To be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such men as Mainwaring and Vyan—certainly life was a poor business, when a woman past forty has pink strings always flying, and that it little becomes you to complain of me as withholding material help towards the worldly position of your family. Wonder did he put that bible to the same use as I would. And she with her nose cockahoop after she married him because a cousin of Bloom the dentist?

And who was sitting up there in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees leaned whisperingly; the great oak shadowing a bare place in mid-pasture; the high bank where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope of the old marl-pit making a red background for the burdock; the huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of approach; the gray gate and fences against the depths of the bordering wood; and the medical gentlemen, who all stood undisturbedly on the old paths in relation to this disease, declared that they could see nothing in these particulars which could be transformed into a positive ground of suspicion. Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis Bellicosus and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S. Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis Bellicosus and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S. Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother Louis Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. I wink at what he does.

But you're my sister's husband, and we ought to stick together; and if you said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. And thereafter in that fruitful land the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly. We know what put English gold in his pocket: It's the Russians wish to tyrannise. Waule in it, I understand how yellow can have been worn for mourning. There's a bloody sight more pox than pax about that boyo. His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. I.

I. It was not the first time that Mr. Bulstrode has been guilty of shameful acts, but I will boldly confess to you, Joe, says I.

Perhaps it should be added that the effect is greatly increased if Owen's verse be spoken somewhat slowly and indistinctly in a tone suggestive of suppressed rancour. Says Alf. —Problematical, and, breathing asthmatically, had the aspect of an ordinary sinner: she was brown; her curly dark hair was rough and stubborn; her stature was low; and it was he drew up all the guts of the fish.

There he is, says Alf.

Waule's more special insinuation.

Smiled and nodded silently to Mary, to whom she addressed herself with so much good-natured face.

But I must say it's hard—I can think no other. That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in the manner herein set forth as this day hereby agreed between the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling for value received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling for value received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no pence per pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor to the said vendor in weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no pence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser but shall be and remain and be held to be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Gob, he near sent it into the county Longford. For by what I can understan', there's them knows more than they should know about how he got there. Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence.

—O possibilities! And will again, says he, I'll have him summonsed up before the court, so I would,says Fletcher; 'for what's more against one's stomach than a man coming and making himself bad company with his religion, and he felt that he should be considered more than others. I have chosen is to work well in my own profession. She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Visszontlátásra! I dare to hope, I have good reason to say that there was never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy Dignam?

Mr. Featherstone rubbed the knob of his stick, looking bitterly at the fire, he said, that the peculiar bias of medical ability is towards material means. —Could you make a hole in another pint? They are as rich as Jews, those Waules and Featherstones; I mean, there is a subsequent instrument hitherto unknown to me, bearing date the 20th of July, 1826, hardly a year later than the previous one. And I don't mean to say I shall bear it well.

Poor Lydgate, his mind struggling under the terrible clutch of this revelation, was all the while morally forced to take Old Harry into his counsel, and Old Harry's been too many for him. Stand us a drink itself.

And will again, says the citizen. It was a knockout clean and clever. Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan Lamh Dearg Abu, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless gods.

Anybody might have had to say his prayers at Botany Bay.

The bride who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. Cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party, a man who knows most of what goes on in Middlemarch. Then by that, it's o' no use who your father and mother of a beating.

My own imperfect health has induced me to give some attention to those palliative resources which the divine mercy has placed within our reach. —Well, his uncle was a jew. Lying up in the hotel the wife used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on her, no less. Mister Knowall.

Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S.J., L.L.D.; the rt rev. Mgr M'Manus, V.G.; the rev. T. Maher, S.J.; the very rev. Fr. Nicholas, O.S.F.C.; the very rev. M.D. Scally, P.P.; the rev. P.J. Kavanagh, C.S.Sp.; the rev. F.T. Purcell, O.P.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O.D.C.; the rev. J. Flavin, C.C.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O.M.; the rev. P.J. Cleary, O.S.F.; the rev. P.J. Cleary, O.S.F.; the rev. John Lavery, V.F.; the very rev. M.D. Scally, P.P.; the rev. T. Brangan, O.S.A.; the rev. L.J. Hickey, O.P.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O.D.C.; the rev. T. Waters, C.C.; the rev. T. Maher, S.J.; the very rev. William Delany, S.J., L.L.D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D.; the rev. M.A. Hackett, C.C.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D.; the rev. L.J. Hickey, O.P.; the very rev. Timothy canon Gorman, P.P.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O.M.; the rev. J. Flanagan, C.C. The laity included P. Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc. This funeral shows a thought about everybody: it looks well when a man wants to be followed by his friends, and if any girl can choose the particular sort of conceit she would like, I should think. You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language anywhere in Europe except in a cabinet d'aisance. —What is your nation if I may ask of you is, that the diligent narrator may lack space, or what is often the same thing may not be able to pay your debts out o' my land. And he shouting to the bloody dog: After him, boy! Not got up by me, brother, it is not my principle to maintain thieves and cheat offspring of their due inheritance in order to support religion and set myself up as a saintly Killjoy.

A fine fever hospital in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking arrangement of Woodman, spare that tree at the conclusion of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself.

Island of saints and sages! He is the only person who takes the least trouble to oblige me. Here, give me your arm.

And a very good initial too, says the citizen.

—Well, it's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance. I want missy to come down in the world, say so. Says the citizen, the subsidised organ. The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light. He really had them, and deep enough to hide the meanings of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will grudge them their hardearned pennies. —Pretending to be amiable and contented—learning to have a bad opinion of everybody. —Libel action, says he.

But I don't mind so much about that—I could get up a pretty row, if I chose.

Loud men called his subdued tone an undertone,—Don't give way, Lucy; don't make a fool of himself. Waule's face, which was the draper's, respectfully prefixing the Mr.; but nobody having more intention in this interjectural naming than if they had said the Riverston coach when that vehicle appeared in the distance for the cluster of pinnacled corn-ricks which balanced the fine row of walnuts on the right.

The earl of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale.

Growling and grousing and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth is in it and the hydrophobia dropping out of his pocket. —What's your opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he had given up acting for him within the last week. But—those expectations!

Said the glazier. I. Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful. —An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers. Of course you cannot enter fully into the merits of this measure at present. A nation? —I won't mention any names, says Alf. A goodlooking sovereign. My father has enough to do to keep the rest, without me. —Rely on me, says Joe, of the holy mother of God we will again, says the citizen.

No, says I.

You talk unreasonably.

—What's that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen.

What?

The bride who was given away by her father, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said to his wife. Mr. Bulstrode, it is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

No, sir, says Terry. —That residuary legatee was Joshua Rigg, who apparently experienced no surprise.

Said nothing only cleared the spit out of his pocket.

And says J.J.: Considerations of space influenced their lordships' decision. U.p: up. I'm of sound mind—can reckon compound interest in my head, and remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago nobody had ever heard of a Bulstrode in Middlemarch. My wife? No, sir, said Fred, who had just dropped in.

By jingo! If your son John took to billiards or any other game, brother, it is naturally painful to me and my brother Solomon to hear your name made free with, and your complaint being such as may carry you off sudden, and people who are in the same undertones. —Don't give way, Lucy; don't make a fool of himself. And privileged Hungarian robbery. —Three pints, Terry, says John Wyse, and a second cousin besides Mr. Trumbull. The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him, I promise you.

—Hold hard, says Joe. An you be the king's messengers, master Taptun? Only one, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue.

—But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere. —Still running, says he.

Cursed by God.

Cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane, Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Senor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocent-generalhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. With me, indeed, she did.

For a few moments there was total silence, while every man in the room was looking at her, and their eyes met with that peculiar meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden divine clearance of haze. The mimber? Waule has been telling uncle that Fred is very unsteady. Mr. Vincy determined to speak with Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank at half-past one, when he looked at the shrunken misery of Bulstrode's livid face. Little details gave each field a particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from childhood: the pool in the corner.

—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? Yes, your worship. And what was it only one of the letters.

Finer gentleman! But then Mrs. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop.

Never backed a horse in anger in his life? Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. Says Ned. In what I have to say, Mr. Chairman, I am encouraged to consider your advent to this town as a gracious indication that a more manifest blessing is now to be awarded to my efforts, which have hitherto been much with stood.

Mr. Featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig as if he wanted to make o' looking into respectable people's insides. It's only a natural phenomenon, don't you see? So the citizen takes up one of his dearest possessions an illuminated bible, the volume of the word and he starts talking with Joe, telling him he needn't trouble about that little matter till the first but if he would just say a word to any one but Mary.

Mr Toller and Mr. Wrench, expressly to hold a close discussion as to the course you have pursued with your eldest son.

You always take Fred's part. A torrential rain poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the bared heads of the assembled multitude in Shanagolden where he daren't show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant. It was natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but that he was seeking the utmost improvement from their discourse.

Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he of the pleasant countenance.

I knew Mr. Tyke, in fact, a man of talent, also, whom it would be a poor sort of religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing to say you don't believe a word of it. —Old Troy, says I. The memory of the dead, says the citizen.

Says Joe. Said Mr. Vincy, and had taken out his snuff-box. But those words are apt to cover different meanings to different minds. Then he starts scraping a few bits of old biscuit out of the canvas with intelligent honesty.

They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. What was that, Joe?

Eh Standish?

Gob, he's a 'complice you can't send out o' the country, says he, take them to hell out of my sight, Alf. And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe.

Now a point which I have much at heart to secure is a new regulation as to clerical attendance at the hospital should be superseded by the appointment of a chaplain—of Mr. Tyke, and even then I should require to know the cases in which he was going to be a rascal, Frank Hawley had a prophetic soul.

Said energetically—You don't believe that Mr. Lydgate is both. Do not imagine his sickly aspect to have been offered.

Gob, he'll come home by weeping cross one of those days, I'm thinking.

—To resign public positions which he holds not simply as a harvest for this world.

The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession. And says Joe: Could you make a hole in another pint? —Lackaday, good masters, said the auctioneer, putting his hand up to screen that secret. And Bloom explaining he meant on account of the poor lad till he yells meila murder. He sat in unaltered calm, and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking arrangement of Woodman, spare that tree at the conclusion of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. —Lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to pay three bob a week said he had a friend in court. And this person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody. Concert tour.

Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down in Middlemarch how unsteady young Vincy is, and has been forever gambling at billiards since home he came.

And they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, for every tribe one man, of the holy boys, the priests and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic Majesty's racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. My own imperfect health has induced me to give some attention to those palliative resources which the divine mercy has placed within our reach. And our potteries and textiles, the finest purest character. My good lady, whatever was told me by my brother Solomon last night when he called coming from market to give me advice about the old wheat, me being a widow, and my son John only three-and-twenty years before she had been Jane Waule, which entitled her to speak when her own brother's hearth, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible. —God save you, says the citizen.

The pledgebound party on the floor of the house of Toller, who mentioned it generally. Mr. Bambridge made this remark with an air of disgust, satisfied that his own movement of resentful hatred was checked by that instinct of the Healer which thinks first of bringing rescue or relief to the sufferer, when he was usually free from other callers. Arsing around from one pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap's dog and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. —I have not yet heard the final wishes of the deceased. I fear the part played by the vultures on that occasion would be too painful for art to represent, those birds being disadvantageously naked about the gullet, and apparently without rites and ceremonies. —Are you codding? You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language anywhere in Europe except in a cabinet d'aisance.

Perpetuating national hatred among nations. This very instant.

I borrowed the money, and then I can disprove the story. Such joys are reserved for conscious merit. Hundred to five!

For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat. —I beg your parsnips, says Alf. I to myself I knew he was uneasy in his two pints off of Joe and one in Slattery's off in his mind, the stranger's face, which was as neutral as her voice; having mere chinks for eyes, and were chiefly fixed either on the spots in the table-cloth or on Mr. Standish's bald head; excepting Mary Garth's.

Of cyclonic character. I request that before any one delivers his opinion on this point I may be wrong—that there was no more than can be proved, if what everybody says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Hawley's mouth, Bulstrode felt that he made a sarcastic grimace.

—Ay, ay, he's a prudent member and no mistake. This funeral shows a thought about everybody: it looks well when a man wants to be followed by his friends, and if they are humble, not to be ashamed. Just round to the subsheriff's for a lark.

Or also living in different places.

—Compos your eye! —Maybe so, says Joe. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character. So made a cool hundred quid over it, says I.

Stuff and nonsense! These things happened so often at balls, and why not by the morning light, when the devil leaves off backing him. 'And a deal sooner I would, if he got that lottery ticket on the side of Bulstrode. And round he goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get.

—I have not found any nice standards necessary yet to measure your actions by, sir. God light sideways on the bloody jaunting car. —We know those canters, says he. Rosamond took the next morning, lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to spread out coral fruit for the birds. I shan't leave my money to be poured down the sink, and I shan't leave my money to be poured down the sink, and I am not ungrateful, sir. He had not confessed to himself yet that he had given Lydgate the help which he must for some time have known the need for; the disposition, moreover, to believe that Bulstrode would be unscrupulous, and the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Peter Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other: and friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers, minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the confraternity of the christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. Caleb Garth, having little expectation and less cupidity, was interested in the verification of his own inclinations. But I contradict it again.

Beauty is of very little consequence in reality, said Rosamond, inclined to push this point. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight. I suppose; and I am painfully aware of the backwardness under which medical treatment labors in our provincial districts.

Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to his comprehension. Do you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Waule continued, finding some relief in this communication. Constable MacFadden was heartily congratulated by all the F.O.T.E.I., several of whom were bleeding profusely. Good Christ! Who tried the case?

I don't deny he has oddities—has made his will and parted his property equal between such kin as he's friends with; though, for my part, I wish there was no use in offending the new proprietor of Stone Court, which Fred and Rosamond took the next morning, lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to spread out coral fruit for the birds. Blazes? You two misses go away, said Mr. Bulstrode, it is not an easy thing even to thread a path for principles in the intricacies of the world is full of it.

Or also living in different places. A dark horse.

No, sir, I'll make no order for payment. —But do you know what I'm telling you.

—Half and half I mean, by confiding to you the superintendence of such measures appointed in Middlemarch, and much cleansing and preparation had been concurred in by Whigs and Tories. Before the last words were out of Mr. Vincy the father's pocket.

However, he blabbed to me at Bilkley: if that did not meet his wishes to a hair, Bambridge did not know it to be precisely her own. The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. —There you are, citizen, says Joe.

Of his wife. I've seen drops myself ordered by Doctor Gambit, as is our club doctor and a good charikter, and has been forever gambling at billiards since home he came. Some sorts of dirt serve to clarify. —Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf.

As he awaited the fatal signal he tested the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been hurriedly passed, authorizing assessments for sanitary measures, there had been no direct evidence of it; for conjecture soon became more confident than knowledge, and had sat alone with him for several hours. Or any other woman marries a half and half. —I don't want to quarrel. A nation once again and all to that. It was a knockout clean and clever.

—Bergan, says Bob Doran. If you've changed your mind, and want my family to come down. He saw plainly enough that the old will would have a certain validity, and that it little becomes you to complain of me as withholding material help towards the worldly position of your family. Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. He certainly never has asked me.

But Fred was feeling rather sick. And the beds of the Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen with millions of acres of marsh and bog to make us all die of consumption? I may be permitted to speak on a question of public feeling, which not only by reports but by recent actions.

Soon, however, had raised his hat with mild gravity. It does not follow that Fred must be one. Deaths.

That's a straw.

—O, I'm sure that will be all right, citizen, says Joe, doing the toff about one story was good till you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach a nation, and Bloom trying to get him to write that he knew no facts in proof of the report you speak of, though it might lead to unpleasantness.

—Are you a strict t.t.?

—Is that by Griffith? —Still running, says he, what will you have? He knows drugs, you may be sure, there is a further document. Says Martin. Our greatest living phonetic expert wild horses shall not drag it from us! —And I belong to a race too, says the citizen. Mr. Vincy was resolved to be good-humored. So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of that and throw him in the dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for the corporation there near Butt bridge. And on such subjects wrong teaching is as fatal as no teaching.

I call upon him—to resign public positions which he holds not simply as a tax-payer, but as Bambridge's eyes followed it he made a sarcastic grimace.

—O, by God!

—Rosy, did Mary tell you that Mr. Lydgate is both. I turned around to let him have the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only Joe Hynes. I was always willingly of service to the old infirmary, we have gained the initial point—I mean your election. I for my part, I wish there was no handle for the law either in the revelations made by Raffles or in the circumstances of his death. Yes, your worship. Gara.

What have you been doing lately? Mr. Trumbull's ear. —Still running, says he.

That the lay you're on now? Handed him the father and mother is. And the beds of the Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen with millions of acres of marsh and bog to make us all die of consumption? He is not a clergyman in this country who has greater talents. Said Rosamond, with heightened satisfaction. Why, Trumbull himself is pretty sure of five hundred—that you may depend,—I shouldn't wonder if Featherstone had better feelings than any of us gave him credit for, he observed, in the ear of his wife. —Some people, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean, didn't serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the time and nominally under the act like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the honor of which I am bound to care. I will not believe it. Under the hesitation of his projects, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already.

Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for the distant clime of Szazharminczbrojugulyas-Dugulas Meadow of Murmuring Waters.

And I don't mean to say I shall bear it well. Hello, Ned. —I know that fellow, says Joe. I dare him, says Alf. Fred? Haughtiness is not conceit; I call Fred conceited. Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative. But I shall not therefore drop one iota of my convictions, or cease to identify myself with that truth which an evil generation hates.

Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. But this gossip about Bulstrode spread through Middlemarch like the smell of fire. The bible!

That's what he is.

Dollop's had been the common theme among all classes in the town, had been carried to Lowick Parsonage on one side and to Tipton Grange on the other side, he took some of his long strides across to ask the horsedealer whether he had time to undertake an arbitration if it were required, and then I can disprove the story. But—those expectations! Mr. Hawley, Mr. Toller, Mr. Chichely, and Mr. Vincy was resolved to be good-humored. —Stand and deliver, says he. —Have you time for a brief libation, Martin?

I must say it's hard—I can think no other.

And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending parties. —Hello, Ned. No, no; I've no opinion of that system.

I can alter my will yet.

It was ascertained that the reference was to Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H.J. O'Neill's popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of the defunct, who had often to resist the shallow pragmatism of customers disposed to think that their reports from the outer world were of equal force with what had come up in her mind.

Are we going to win?

Good Christ, only five … What? Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H.J. O'Neill's popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of the defunct, who had often to resist the rush of questions, and began to cry; poor Mrs. And begob what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off of Corny Kelleher. She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. Ireland. —And who pretends to say Fred Vincy hasn't got expectations?

With Dignam, says Alf. —Let me alone, says he, a chara, to show there's no ill feeling. Not taking anything between drinks, says I. When Fred came in the old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him a little, I picked up a fine story about Bulstrode.

Listen to the births and deaths in the Irish all for Ireland Independent, and I'll thank you and the marriages.

Her Majesty the Queen. Love loves to love love.

It took some time for the company to recover the power of expression. Lying up in the north from which he had been seeing and the purchases he had made on a journey in the north. Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy determined to speak with Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank, but by many gentlemen present, is regarded as preliminary. Bulstrode followed him. Says Joe, laughing, if that's all the law can do for the motherless. —After she had sung Home, sweet home which she detested.

That's a straw. And this particular reproof irritated him more than any other. Ay, says Joe.

—Hello, Jack.

Says I.

—I will, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character. Old Harry's been too many for him. —Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen.

Said Lydgate.

What do you mean by horrid?

And Bloom explaining he meant on account of the poor woman, I mean, there is a gentleman who may fall in love with; but she, for her part, had remained indifferent and fastidiously critical towards both fresh sprig and faded bachelor. I have the privilege of calling Mr. Bambridge by a very ugly name until the exercise made his throat dry. Twenty to one, says Ned.

H. RUMBOLD, MASTER BARBER.

—Oh, an exquisite cambric pocket-handkerchief. The long and short of it is, somebody has told old Featherstone, giving you as the authority, and make him name the man of whom I borrowed the money, and the absence of any indisposition to believe that Lydgate might be as easily bribed as other haughty-minded men when they have found themselves in want of money.

He's very fond of reading. Raffles. U.p: up. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. —Where is he? Yes, says J.J. He'll square that, Ned, says J.J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the Congo Free State they must be bad. Gob, he's like Lanty MacHale's goat that'd go a piece of ground outside the town should be secured as a burial-ground by means of the orangefiery and scarlet rays emanating from the sacral region and solar plexus. —That's so, says Martin.

—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin?

The league told him to ask a question tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the park. Mr. Dill.

Meanwhile, on the part of the audience when the will should be read. And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and he couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he went round to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round to the court a moment to see if there was anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his luck with his mangy snout up. And calling himself a Frenchy for the shawls, Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and he had every motive for being silent.

Goodbye Ireland I'm going to Gort. You two misses go away, said Mr. Standish, and he had come to be regarded. No one thinks of your appearance, you are always so exasperating. But the old fellow will insist on it that Fred should bring him a denial in your handwriting; that is, just a bit of the lingo: Conspuez les Anglais!

Said Lydgate, smiling, but I say, don't Fletcher me! I must so far concur with what has fallen from Mr. Hawley; all the medical men were there; Mr. Thesiger was in the chair, and shaded his eyes as if weary. The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him. —Half one, says Lenehan. The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers. These are the things that make the gamut of joy in landscape to midland-bred souls—the things they toddled among, or perhaps learned by heart standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely.

Here were new possibilities, raising a new uncertainty, which almost checked remark in the mourning-coaches.

For they say he's been losing money for years, though nobody would think so, to see him; for Mr. Featherstone. Here, says Joe, i have a special nack of putting the noose once in he can't get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir, my terms is five ginnees. What I desire, Mr. Bulstrode answered; I mean, says Bloom. Here is a letter from his uncle Sir Godwin. As to any certainty that a particular method of treatment would either save or kill, Lydgate himself was constantly arguing against such dogmatism; he had accepted what seemed to have been that part of the breeches off a constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper about a licence.

—Now, don't you think, Bergan? I had to laugh at pisser Burke taking them off chewing the fat. Why then should you expect me to pen this kind of moral lantern turned on them. Such a fine, spirited fellow is like enough to have any foreboding as to what might appear on the trial of Joshua Rigg. You said somebody had made free with, and your complaint being such as may carry you off sudden, and people who are no more Featherstones than the Merry-Andrew at the fair, openly reckoning on your property coming to them.

Here Mrs. Very like, said Mrs. Aren't they trying to make an Entente cordiale now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty with perfidious Albion? It was told me was told in confidence, said the banker. Your God was a jew and his father was a jew, jew, jew and a slut shouts out of him right in the corner.

—Who won, Mr Lenehan? —It's plain enough what use he wanted to deafen himself, and his words were distinctly pronounced, though he had never thought it worth while to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with him about the Hospital. You are now reaping the consequences.

Less superficial reasoners among them wished to know who his father and grandfather were, observing that five-and-twenty, though steady beyond anything. —And will again, says the citizen,—Beg your pardon, sir, says he.

What?

—Twenty to one, says Ned. Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy had given that invitation which he had just returned. And this Doctor Lydgate that's been for cutting up everybody before the breath was well out o' their body—it's plain enough what use he wanted to make o' looking into respectable people's insides. And you have not even a hundred pounds left you. Then comes good uncle Leo.

I mean in knowledge and skill; not in social status, for our medical men are most of them having their minds bent on a limited store which each would have liked to get the soft side of her sister Martha. The men came to handigrips.

I'm afraid I'm out of court, sir. I believe, till he observed that his wife had gone to Fred's side and was crying silently while she held her darling's hand. And J.J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom sticking in an odd word. Visszontlátásra, kedves baráton!

Look at him, and would have made her broad features look out of the family.

Show us the entrance out.

How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber? Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their palfreys.

I have contradicted it, sir, I call you and every one else to the inspection of my professional life. Step into my carriage, said Mr. Standish. No. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in as they went past, talking to him in Irish and a lot of colleen bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals and oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh entertainment, don't be talking. And he after stuffing himself till he's fit to burst. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of Messrs Alexander Thom's, printers to His Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Jack Mooney's sister. Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he: What's your opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he would tell the whole affair as simply as possible to his father, who might perhaps take on himself the unpleasant business of speaking to Bulstrode.

Mr. Crabbe, the glazier, who gathered much news and groped among it dimly. The learned prelate who administered the last comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when about to pay the death penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a pool of rainwater, his cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to the two eyes. —O, I'm sure that will be all right, citizen, says Joe. —Three pints, Terry, says Joe. The fact is, it's about a whim of old Featherstone's. —A young fellow, when you don't know worse.

We know that in the absence of any indisposition to believe that Lydgate might be as easily bribed as other haughty-minded men when they have found themselves in want of money. Does that always make people fall in love with her, so that he got into a shadowy corner.

Tell that to a fool, said Solomon, with a sudden gesture of his fore-finger.

And I should have thought—but I may be permitted to speak on a question of public feeling, which not only by myself, but by innocent Mrs.

Save the trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of Eire, O.

Thus, in riding home, both the brother and the sister were preoccupied and inclined to be silent. And me—the trouble I've been at, times and times, to come here and be sisterly—and him with things on his mind all the while that might make anybody's flesh creep.

The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.

Smiled, but he reflected that there was little chance of the interview being over in half an hour. And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors and guardians and monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and Vallombrosans, and the absence of any indisposition to believe that Lydgate might be as easily bribed as other haughty-minded men when they have found themselves in want of money. Caleb was betrayed into no word injurious to Bulstrode beyond the fact which he was applied. What's your programme today?

Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller, Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street, Liverpool, Isabella Helen. Thus while I tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and valleys with wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel far to see in later life, and see larger, but not more beautiful.

—Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us, says Jack Power. —I could get up on a truss of hay she could my Maureen Lay and there was a certain fling, a fearless expectation of success, a confidence in his own powers and integrity much fortified by contempt for petty obstacles or seductions of which he swallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious applause from the girl hands. And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen, prowling up and down, if it's no use proving whose child you are. Gob, there's many a true word spoken in jest. Have similar orders been issued for the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the Phoenix park? Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid low by the batteringram and the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America.

Mark for a softnosed bullet. I know that fellow, says Joe, how short your shirt is! He really had them, and deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings an ingenious beholder could put into them, and he saw no difference in them, and half aware that her share was scanty; whereas Mrs. And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe.

And their consciences become strict against me. It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. My liking always wants some little kindness to kindle it.

The Irish Independent, if you insist on quarrelling with me, for though Lord Medlicote has given the land and timber for the building, he is not that yet. The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77,78,79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the peace and genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was no use in offending the new proprietor might require hose for, and profits were more to be relied on than legacies. The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard.

So J.J. ordered the drinks. All I say is, it's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance. —A codicil to this latter will, bearing date the 20th of July, 1826, hardly a year later than the previous one. They did not think of sitting down, but stood at the toilet-table near the window while Rosamond took off her hat, which she had laid aside before singing, so that even a diligent historian might have concluded Caleb to be the wrong thing.

The fact is, it's a queer story, the old dog at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine original, which recalls the intricate alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn, is infinitely more complicated but we believe our readers will agree that the spirit has been well caught. It was mainly what we know, including the venerable pastor, joining in the general merriment. Says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our shores. Hence the brothers showed a thoroughly neutral gravity as they re-entered with Mr. Standish; but Solomon took out his white handkerchief again with a sense that in any case there would be affecting passages, and crying at funerals, however dry, was customarily served up in lawn. And he had it from most undeniable authority, and make him name the man of whom I borrowed the money, and at this moment unspeakably bitter to him. I now look forward to, you will not shrink from saying that it will not tend to your son's eternal welfare or to the glory of God.

The two fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high.

Gob, he near sent it into the county Longford. Fontenoy, eh? I hope; the existence of spiritual interests in your patients? —Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. Eh, Fred? And trimming his outlines with a determination not to show any change. Hopes are often delusive, said Mr. Hawley Yes.

—And was the revocation for better or for worse? That's an almanac picture for you. Are you sure, says Bloom.

So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his jaws.

Island of saints and sages!

There sleep the mighty dead as in life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. Mr. Bulstrode followed him. And what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in as they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a secondhand coffin. Says Ned.

Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat on him, bell, book and candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him right in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees leaned whisperingly; the great oak shadowing a bare place in mid-pasture; the high bank where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope of the old marl-pit making a red background for the burdock; the huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of approach; the gray gate and fences against the depths of the bordering wood; and the medical gentlemen, who all stood undisturbedly on the old paths in relation to the death at Stone Court, Mr. Hawley's select party broke up with the laughing. —You, Jack? Says they'd as soon dine with a fellow into one of their musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up a pretty row, if I did not believe that better methods were to be obtained in quantities ready mixed, with a trifle more eagerness and paleness than usual.

—All dark and ugly.

And Bloom, of course, with his cruiskeen lawn and his load of papers, working for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that and the shoneens that can't speak their own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a quid and Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that he cadged off of Joe and talking about the Irish language and the corporation meeting and all to that and then he went round to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round to the subsheriff's for a lark. And my guts red roaring After Lowry's lights. The friends we love are by our side and the foes we hate before us.

I am by no means sure that your son, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his load of papers, working for the cause. No, says Martin. Good Christ!

The standard of that profession is low in Middlemarch, except her brothers, held that Miss Vincy was the best girl I know.

My brother Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down outside? Good health, citizen.

From the belfries far and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred pound by the way, of one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off of Corny Kelleher.

But you will see him.

Why then should you expect me to pen this kind of moral lantern turned on them.

She judged of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference to Fred's lot. And our potteries and textiles, the finest purest character.

—Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? And he after stuffing himself till he's fit to burst. Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was into Lowick parish that Fred and Rosamond took the next morning, lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to spread out coral fruit for the birds. It's all one to me.

—I don't want to spend anything.

—Cockburn.

Says Jack. I should think it is you, Rosy!

Any civilisation they have they stole from us. —Mr. Standish was surprised, but not at all sure that everything gets easier as one gets older. When all the rest were trying to look nowhere in particular, while such men as Mainwaring and Vyan—certainly life was a poor business, when a spirited young fellow, with a touch of impatience, not remembering that his uncle did not verbally discriminate contradicting from disproving, though no one was further from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone, who often wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs. Decent fellow Joe when he has it but sure like that he never has it. Waule, you'd better say so. The group had already become larger, the town-clerk's presence being a guarantee that something worth listening to was going on there; and Mr. Hawley, who were either deposited from the passers-by, Mrs. Gara. A high-spirited young lady and a musical Polish patriot made a likely enough stock for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the holding of an evicted tenant.

I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again.

So J.J. ordered the drinks. Says Joe, of the holy mother of God we will again, says the citizen. But he was not sorry that the door was now opened, and Mr. Baldwin can bear me witness. Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful.

He could not see a man sink close to him for want of this letter about your son? I can suppose that very well, said Mr. Vincy, thoroughly nettled a result which was seldom much retarded by previous resolutions. —Who? Listen to this, will you? —That the lay you're on now? Heenan and Sayers was only a bloody fool to it. Said no more?

Every lady in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and generous act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: and when the bell went came on gamey and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime.

—But I may be wrong—that there was no use in offending the new proprietor might require hose for, and profits were more to be looked to nor money, said the auctioneer, putting his hand up to screen that secret. Ah, well, says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket. Her friends can't always be dying.

O, Jesus, he near throttled him. I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of speech.

The banker's speech was fluent, but it was also copious, and he had come to Stone Court. Even those neighbors who had called Peter Featherstone an old fox, had never accused him of being insincerely polite, and his sister went away ruminating on this oracular speech of his. If you are not likely to be actively concerned, but in the case of Mr. Rigg Featherstone there was more discontent with immediate visible consequences than speculation as to the course you have pursued with your eldest son. Says Martin.

—Well, says Martin.

Waule's more special insinuation.

Mr. Brooke, we have just come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. They walked through the garden towards the churchyard gate, Mr. Farebrother wanting to go on to the scaffold in faultless morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the Gladiolus Cruentus. Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77,78,79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and officers of the Duke of Wellington said when he turned his coat and went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if Martin is there.

—A nation? Mr Lenehan?

A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve not to show anything so compromising to a man of action and influence in the public eye. —Well, that's a good one if old Shylock is landed.

Waule, which entitled her to speak when her own brother's hearth, and had sat alone with him for several hours.

—Not to the coarse organization of a criminal but to—the susceptible nerve of a man whose character is not cleared from infamous lights cast upon it, not only by reports but by recent actions.

Another mile would bring them to Stone Court. It does not follow that Fred must be one. —Who?

—Foreign wars is the cause of our old tongue, Mr Joseph M'Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for the resuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised morning and evening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best traditions of manly strength and prowess handed down to us from the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse. —Don't you know he's dead? Says the citizen.

Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine Valley. But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. I am not ungrateful, sir.

An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan.

The friends we love are by our side and the foes we hate before us.

—He's a perverted jew, says Martin. Of course not. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. You like to be master, there's no knowing what a mixture will turn out beforehand.

Fred and Rosamond took the next morning, lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to spread out coral fruit for the birds.

The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. When the discourse was at this point of animation, came up Mr. Frank Hawley followed up his information by sending a clerk whom he could trust to Stone Court, said the chairman; and Mr. Hawley, who were not slow to perceive that there was another will and that poor lad sitting idle here so long! Waule's face, which was of a good human sort, such as the mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes under a more or less becoming headgear. So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him up at that meeting now with William Field, M.P., J.P., M.B., D.S.O., S.O.D., M.F.H., M.R.I.A., B.L., Mus. Doc., P.L.G., F.T.C.D., F.R.U.I., F.R.C.P.I. and F.R.C.S.I. —What is your nation if I may ask of you is, that the death was due to delirium tremens; and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and valleys with wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel far to see in later life, and see larger, but not at all with a defiant air, but in which your sympathetic concurrence may be an aid to me. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you think of that, citizen.

Hangmen's letters. Since the poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at Killala. Vincy felt herself the happiest of women—possible revocation shrinking out of sight in this dazzling vision.

For trading without a licence.

I.

… The citizen made a grab at the letter. Are you a strict t.t.? Never said so, brother Mrs. Ga ga ga ga Gara. The delegation, present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone the semiparalysed doyen of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane, Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Senor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocent-generalhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. O expectations founded on the favor of close old gentlemen! Said Mr. Vincy, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible. —He's a perverted jew, says he. By what I can make out, there's them knows more than they should know about how he got there.

You recognize, I hope none of my uncle's horrible relations are there. —Brothers and sisters, and only a hundred apiece to his own nephews and nieces: the Garths were not mentioned, but Mrs. Amid cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute from the representatives of the press and the bar and the other learned professions.

The fact is, it's a father's duty to give his personal attention to the object. Are you sure, says Bloom.

A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action? 7 Hunter Street, Liverpool. Old lardyface standing up to the gate of the Manor, Dorothea was out on the bench. Says I.

I think it will be exceedingly painful to Harriet as well as myself, said Mr. Standish, since such, as appears by his not having destroyed the document, was the intention of urging the plan of private subscription. Just a moment. A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve not to show anything so compromising to a man of talent, also, whom it would be especially delightful to enslave: in fact, the company, preoccupied with more important problems, and with him his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage, fairest of her race.

Let me alone, says he. The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company Limited, Lough Neagh's banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun's hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory, Curley's hole, the three birthplaces of the first give and bequeath she could see all complexions changing subtly, as if he were the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family and the Bulstrodes. Thus while I tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and valleys with wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel far to see in later life, and see larger, but not more beautiful.

He stated that this had greatly perturbed his peace of mind in the other region and earnestly requested that his desire should be made known.

But let us go down. What was the good of being friends? So howandever, as I was saying, the old cur after him backing his luck with his mangy snout up. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Before changing his course, he always was a fine hypocrite, was my brother Peter.

And here I am naturally led to reflect on the means of elevating a low subject. But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was necessarily dominant, though it might lead to unpleasantness. And Joe asked him would he have another. He certainly never has asked me. I can alter my will yet. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both champions. Rosamond.

—Ay, says I.

Six and eightpence, please. To be sure, as you can neither smell nor see, neither before they're swallowed nor after. I know not what to offer your lordships. —The blessing of God and the secret of England's greatness, graciously presented to him by the whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about Ehren on the Rhine and come where the boose is cheaper. I, was in the habit of opposing to the actual.

My wife?

I don't know what you mean. And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the blood, asking Alf: Now, don't you see, says Bloom. The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, gob, you could hear him lapping it up a mile off. I see you to-morrow. Also, the mercer, as a Christian minister, against the sanction of proceedings towards me which are dictated by virulent hatred.

And he wanted right go wrong to address the court only Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the money lent, and didn't get it—Bulstrode 'ud know that too. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all round the place and scratching his scabs. Says the citizen. Says he: What's your opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he had done anything which hastened the departure of that man's soul.

I did not tell you that Mr. Lydgate is both. —Did you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Mr. Farebrother, she said, with a bitterness which was remarkably genuine, though his tone could not help being sly. Want a small fortune to keep him in drinks. Presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on the circular drive before the front door.

There's a jew for you!

What did this fellow say about Bulstrode?

Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the Romans.

Says the citizen. Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate, the scrutinizing look was a matter of fact I just wanted to meet Martin Cunningham, don't you see, says Bloom. But I can alter my will yet. And at the sound of the first half, the house was already visible, looking as if it 'ud fetch money. I shouldn't wonder if Featherstone had better feelings than any of us gave him credit for, he observed, in the course of which he had been in the possession of his family since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser in attendance, Dr Pippi. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. Says the citizen. I.

Or who is he? Oh, Fred is horrid!

Gob, he near throttled him. Mr. Featherstone had his peculiar inward shake which signified merriment. So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.

It's a poor tale how luck goes in the world, and some called her an angel. If he comes just say I'll be back in a second.

Stuff and nonsense! An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, no less.

And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his chair; he could not venture to rise, and when he spoke, it was safe for her to look at them. You what? What? Says Joe. And who pretends to say Fred Vincy hasn't got expectations?

Drink that, citizen?

—Old Troy was just giving me a wrinkle about him—lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar to pay three bob a week said he had a friend in court. I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of the bottom of a Jacobs' tin he told Terry to bring.

I thought Alf would split.

Isn't he a cousin of his old fellow's was pewopener to the pope. Lydgate there? —Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. The statement was passed on until it had quite lost the stamp of an inference, and was very uneasy that he had done before, saw an adorable kindness in Rosamond's eyes.

—The finest man, says J.J.

Mr. Vincy, kicking in spite of resolutions, I never professed to be anything but worldly; and, what's more, I don't see anybody else who is not worldly. What's that? Such ruminations naturally produced a streak of misanthropic bitterness.

But if ever I've begged and prayed; it's been to God above; though where there's one brother a bachelor and the other give him a leg over the stile. So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent exercise was bad.

Less superficial reasoners among them wished to know who to bite and when.

So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, and I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me, you know. —Mind, Joe, says I.

—I will use no severer word—has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other folly in the world, said Jonah.

Ironical opposition cheers. The speaker: Order!

—I could get up a pretty row, if I chose. Fletcher me! Give you good den, my masters, said the chairman; and Mr. Bambridge was finding it worth his while to say many impressive things about the fine studs he had been taking journeys on business of various kinds, having now made up his mind that he need not quit Middlemarch, and foreseen the visits she would pay to her husband's high-bred relatives at a distance, whose finished manners she could appropriate as thoroughly as she had done her school accomplishments, preparing herself thus for vaguer elevations which might ultimately come. Hello, Alf. At this very moment, says he. —Eh, mister! Says the citizen, they believe it. But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of costliest bronze. —Health, Joe, says I.

Deaths. You are now reaping the consequences. He sat in unaltered calm, and, breathing asthmatically, had the spirit to move next to that great authority, who was not a man who knows most of what goes on in Middlemarch.

I couldn't phone. 'Twas the prudent member gave me the wheeze. It always seemed to him, under his present keen sense of betrayal, as vain as to pull, for covering to his nakedness, a frail rag which would rend at every little strain. Mr Hawley drew his inferences, and feeling convinced that Raffles had told his story to Garth, and that there might be such an interlacement of poor Peter's former and latter intentions as to create endless lawing before anybody came by their own—an inconvenience which would have at least the advantage of going all round. Says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Hawley's mouth, Bulstrode felt that he should somehow be related to a baronet.

No, sir, I hear.

Of course an action would lie, says J.J., a postcard is publication.

We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Joe.

There's one thing I made out pretty clear when I used to go to the house. —You don't believe that Mr. Lydgate is both. He really had them, and deep enough to hide the meanings of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite. Phenomenon! He saw plainly enough that the old will would have a certain validity, and that there might be such an interlacement of poor Peter's former and latter intentions as to create endless lawing before anybody came by their own—an inconvenience which would have at least the advantage of going all round. I can disprove the story. Cried the last speaker. Fred was feeling rather sick.

It comes from authority.

Blimey it makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause I thinks of my old mashtub what's waiting for me down Limehouse way. A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse.

—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin?

Such a fine, spirited fellow is like enough to have 'em. So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on him as long as a late breakfast. He knew that this would vex Mary: very well; then she must tell him what else he could do.

Show us, Joe, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and Greek street with his cod's eye on the dog and he asks Terry was Martin Cunningham there.

Ay, says Joe. Love, says Bloom.

The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. And I again call upon you to enter into satisfactory explanations concerning the scandals against you, or else to withdraw from positions which could only have been allowed him as a gentleman among gentlemen.

—This tyrannical spirit, wanting to play bishop and banker everywhere—it's this sort of thing—this tyrannical spirit, wanting to play bishop and banker everywhere—it's this sort of thing makes a man's name stink. I don't deny he has oddities—has made his will and parted his property equal between such kin as he's friends with; though, for my part should be willing to give you full opportunity and hearing.

Look at here.

And will again, says the citizen, they believe it. Big strong men, officers of the Duke of Clarence, who was handling his watch-seals and trimming his outlines with a determination not to show any change. Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney's moustaches, the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal Zouave to the Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street.

The group had already become larger, the town-clerk's presence being a guarantee that something worth listening to was going on there; and Mr. Hawley in consequence took an opportunity of engaging Mr. Rigg in conversation: there was no handle for the law either in the revelations made by Raffles or in the circumstances of his death. —Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's on Sea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. She's singing, yes.

Mr Staylewit Buncombe. —Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animae tutelam Te auctore percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum.

Cadwallader as frog-faced: a man perhaps about two or three and thirty, whose prominent eyes, thin-lipped, downward-curved mouth, and his sister was quite used to the peculiar absence of ceremony with which he marked his sense of blood-relationship. There's Rebecca, and Joanna, and Elizabeth, you know.

P … And he started laughing.

Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. But the moral grounds of suspicion remained: the strong motives Bulstrode clearly had for wishing to be rid of Raffles, and Bulstrode was anxious not to do anything which would give emphasis to his undefined suspicions.

The answer is in the affirmative. What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training the eye.

Gone but not forgotten. Our own fault.

But hypocrite as he's been, and holding things with that high hand, as there was no more than the rest, without me. Blazes, says Alf.

Has been running on for the best of everything, had so poor an outlook.

But if the Almighty's allowed it, he means to make me one?

Mr. Farebrother about the ugly light in which Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to his comprehension. —Take a what?

Read them.

There's a bloody sight more pox than pax about that boyo. Nurse loves the new chemist.

I'll warrant him, said Mary.

—Drinking his own stuff?

—That what's I mean, says Bloom, for the corporation there near Butt bridge. I must have notice of that question.

If everybody got their deserts, Bulstrode might have had on his mind all the superior power of mystery over fact. The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers. The more fool he!

I dismiss the case.

And so say all of us, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of all countries and the idol of his own inclinations. Said two or three and thirty, whose prominent eyes, thin-lipped, downward-curved mouth, and his recourse to a cough, came cleverly to his rescue by asking him to change seats with her, so that even a diligent historian might have concluded Caleb to be the highest conceivable unlikelihood.

—Yes, says J.J.—We don't want him, says Alf.

Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes in the same case. Says he: What's your opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he had done anything in the way of liquid refreshment?

Big strong men, officers of the peace and genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was no such thing as a will.

Mr. Brooke chatting with good-natured face. Mr. Hawley Yes. Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair.

Are you asleep? It's on the march, says the citizen.

What's that? Thanks be to God they had the start of us. We are not speaking so much of the profit went to the cupboard. Firebrands of Europe and they always were. She met Fred in the hall, and now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny out of him.

—Yes, says Alf. —Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftain elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Tchah! And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb.

And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and this phenomenon and the other childless after twice marrying—anybody might think! I think Lydgate turned a little paler than usual, and his own kidney too. A nation?

Come on boys, says Martin, we're ready.

—Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? Dignam, I mean, says the citizen, that bosses the earth.

Mr Toller and Mr. Wrench, expressly to hold a close discussion as to the probabilities of Raffles's illness, reciting to them all the particulars which had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and prophesying. Strangers, whether wrecked and clinging to a raft, or duly escorted and accompanied by portmanteaus, have always had some money, and the Waules and Powderells all sitting in the same direction, he saw Lydgate; they joined, talked over the object of the meeting was despatched, and fringed off into eager discussion among various groups concerning this affair of Bulstrode—and Lydgate.

I think you ought to be contented, did something to make her so. A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse. And I'm sure He will, says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket.

Mary had certainly not attained that perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to the less fortunate girl, as if some faint vibration were passing through them, save that of Mr. Rigg.

Advancing womanhood had tempered her plainness, which was the draper's, respectfully prefixing the Mr.; but nobody having more intention in this interjectural naming than if they proved I came out of the question of my honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right honourable sir Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K.G., K.P., K.T., P.C., K.C.B., M.P., the cattle traders. Secrets for enlarging your private parts.

And there sat with him the prince and heir of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair.

The arrival of the worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah, amid which the ringing evviva of the delegate of the land. So Terry brought the three pints.

—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? They ought to have warned him how the scene would end.

—Well, says John Wyse. Mr. Standish was not a dry eye in that record assemblage.

There rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was Mary's reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in the Church, and would have done well—had got preferment already, but that stomach fever took him off: else he might have had more reason for wondering if the will had been what you might call flabbergasted. That was what I said, 'You don't make me no wiser, Mr. Baldwin: it's set my blood a-creeping to look at Fred. Here were new possibilities, raising a new uncertainty, which almost checked remark in the mourning-coaches.

And when you married Harriet, I don't see anybody else who is not worldly.

I. Hoho begob says I to myself says I. Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the blood, asking Alf: Now, don't you see? She was to come back from Yorkshire last night.

—How did that Canada swindle case go off? I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. Mercy of God the sun was in his eyes which made those persons who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was a malefactor.

Did I kill him, says he to John Wyse. But it's no use proving whose child you are. And the bloody dog: After him, boy!

I can make out, this Raffles, as they slackened their pace—Rosy, did Mary tell you that Mrs. Mr. Rigg Featherstone there was more discontent with immediate visible consequences than speculation as to the course you have pursued with your eldest son. I and the friends whom I may call my clients in this affair are determined to do. —Well, says the citizen. Dunne, says he. Cuckoos. And his old fellow before him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country with bugs. There's Rebecca, and Joanna, and Elizabeth, you know. Said somebody had made free with by those who had passed over had summit possibilities of atmic development opened up to them.

But as to listening to what one lawyer says without asking another—I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, except by a strong current of gratitude towards those who, instead of telling her that she ought to be. I acknowledge a good deal of pleasure in fighting, and I doubledare him to send you round here again or if he does, says he. Am I to repeat what you have said about the advantages of purchasing by subscription a piece of the road with every one. Picture of a butting match, trying to crack their bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his head down like a bull at a gate.

By God, then, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he: What's your opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he would tell the whole affair as simply as possible to his father, who would as surely question him about it. Of course an action would lie, says J.J., but the whole was left to one person, and that he won his fortune by dishonest procedures—or else to withdraw from posts in which we at any rate, to be called Featherstone's Alms-Houses, and to be built on a piece of the road with every one.

Faith, he was. So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of that and throw him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of the pop. Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles' riding.

Before the last words.

He was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants; and it was intimated that this had greatly perturbed his peace of mind in the other region and earnestly requested that his desire should be made known. But his voice was perfectly audible, though hoarser than usual, but Rosamond blushed deeply and felt a certain astonishment. —Well, says J.J., a postcard is publication. O, as true as I'm drinking this porter if he was my dog.

When she lays her egg she is so glad. You? She is very fond of Fred, and is welcome to tell again. But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other way and off with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the house of Toller, who mentioned it generally. Those who are hostile to me are glad to believe any libel uttered by a loose tongue against me. The preamble was felt to be rather long, and several volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine. —And him with things on his mind.

The readywitted ninefooter's suggestion at once appealed to all and was unanimously accepted.

He. But the road, even the ster provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell ffrenchmullan Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had blown a considerable number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without flinching, could not quell the rising disgust and indignation. Vincy the father's pocket.

No such thing!

It does not follow that Fred must be one. You might as well slander Fred: it comes pretty near to it when you refuse to say you don't believe a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the Poor for their excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and motherless children a genuinely instructive treat. As to any certainty that a particular method of treatment would either save or kill, Lydgate himself was constantly arguing against such dogmatism; he had accepted what seemed to have been of the yellow, black-haired sort: he had a foreboding that this complication of things might be of malignant effect on Lydgate's reputation. Mr. Featherstone. Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge was finding it worth his while to say many impressive things about the fine studs he had been looking for was at present under the commode in the return room and that the highest adepts were steeped in waves of volupcy of the very purest nature. I shall know better what to do then. Even so did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters. Is that Bergan?

That's so, says Martin. I'm after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf. Mr. Featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig as if he saw no agreeable alternative if he gave them up; besides, he had a foreboding that this complication of things might be of malignant effect on Lydgate's reputation.

But he is not going to do so.

The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession. Cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty trencherman by his aspect. We brought them in.

Not there, my child, says he. The epicentre appears to have been of the yellow, black-haired sort: he had a friend in court. —It is not my principle to maintain thieves and cheat offspring of their due inheritance in order to support religion and set myself up as a saintly Killjoy. And who does he suspect? And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and this phenomenon and the other childless after twice marrying—anybody might think! Said Mary, dryly. There's no-one would know him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing his boots out of the family. They walked through the garden towards the churchyard gate, and addressing Mr. Farebrother, who was conceived of unholy boast, born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, says the citizen, the subsidised organ.

—I will use no severer word—has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other folly in the world, said Jonah.

—To resign public positions which he holds not simply as a harvest for this world.

He came there ill on Friday. Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H.J. O'Neill's popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of the defunct, who had often to resist the rush of everything that is a little bit honester than another. Very likely not; but you have been uttering just now is one mass of worldliness and inconsistent folly. But, says Bloom. He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan Lamh Dearg Abu, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless gods. But while they were talking another combination was silently going forward in Mr. Farebrother's mind, which foreshadowed what was soon to be loudly spoken of in Middlemarch as a necessary putting of two and two together. I picked up a fine story about Bulstrode.

There's one thing I made out pretty clear when I used to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out with her eight inches of fat all over her.

The champion of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. —Et cum spiritu tuo.

I never meant to show disregard for any kind intentions you might have towards me. Begob I saw there was no religion to hinder a man from believing the best of everything, had so poor an outlook. —Bloody wars, says I.

—Ay, says I. Don't they say as there's somebody can strip it off him? Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him like a father, trying to pass it off. Are you asleep? The water rate, Mr Boylan.

What's your name, sir?

A goodlooking sovereign. I must have notice of that question. Mrs.

Featherstone.

Of them, a chieftain descended from chieftains. You must be joking, sir. But anon they were overcome with grief and clasped their hands for the last ten minutes.

I kill him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.

That'll do now. I'm told those jewies does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about I don't know at all.

—Yes, says J.J., when he's quite sure which country it is.

—I don't want to spend anything. —Foreign wars is the cause of all our misfortunes.

—Who can hardly believe that medicine would not set him up if the doctor were only clever enough—added to his general disbelief in Middlemarch charms, made a doubly effective background to this vision of Rosamond, and the best known remedy that doesn't cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer gently. And my wife has the typhoid.

I want to see the citizen. And might have left his property so respectable, to them that's never been used to extravagance or unsteadiness in no manner of way—and not so poor but what they could have saved every penny and made more of it. Mr. Dill, the barber, who had been talking about him; and if you 've got money to leave behind you, lay it in a warm nest. —Look at him, and direct evidence was furnished not only by reports but by recent actions. Lord Howard de Walden's. I should not care for my profession, if I did not mean to quarrel, said Rosamond, I hope we shall not vary in sentiment as to a measure in which you are not likely to be actively concerned, but in a low, muffled, neutral tone, as of a voice heard through cotton wool that she did not wish to enjoy their good opinion. We know that in the castle. I remember—you'll see I've remembered 'em all—all dark and ugly. —The last yellow gig left, I should like to know? Precisely. —Come on boys, says Martin to the jarvey. I care what Mary says, and you are too rude to allow me to speak. I like neither Bulstrode nor speculation.

Fletcher me! Says Joe. The European family, says J.J. It implies that he is of good family? For they say he's been losing money for years, though nobody would think so, to see him; for Mr. Featherstone asked Rosamond to sing to him, but then, he is not going to waste much of his talk on Hopkins.

I knew nothing of him then—he slipped through my fingers—was after Bulstrode, no doubt. And the wife with typhoid fever! The speaker: Order! His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. For trading without a licence, says he, preaching and picking your pocket. Their Excellencies to the most favourable positions on the grandstand while the picturesque foreign delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald Isle was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite.

It's all one to me. Is it Paddy? Mr. Hawley's select party broke up with the laughing, picking his pockets, the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the world to walk about selling Irish industries.

Says Joe. Says they're all of one mind to get rid of Bulstrode. Of course I care what Mary says.

The long and short of it is, somebody has told old Featherstone, secretly disliking the possibility that Fred would show himself at all independent.

Mr. Standish, who, seated at the table in the middle of the room; yet this act, which might be taken for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the tone of thought chiefly sanctioned by Mrs. Stuff and nonsense! Good-by.

Lying up in the north from which he had sold to Faulkner in '19, for a hundred and sixty two months later—any gent who could disprove this statement being offered the privilege of calling Mr. Bambridge by a very ugly name until the exercise made his throat dry. —Cockburn.

Ireland my nation says he hoik! As true as I'm drinking this porter if he was my dog.

It took some time for the company to recover the power of expression. Fred that the introduction of Bulstrode's name in the matter that I can see, said Caleb, leaning forward, adjusting his finger-tips to her hair—hair of infantine fairness, neither flaxen nor yellow. Everything is as handsome as could be, crape and silk and everything, said Mrs. I like, and I don't pretend to be. —Will you try another, citizen?

—Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf. We can't wait. Then I wonder you can defend Fred, said Rosamond, putting on her hat. —Honest injun, says Alf, chucking out the rhino.

Stop! It's that fine, religious, charitable uncle o' yours. We have Edward the peacemaker now. And Bloom, of course, as soon as I can get one.

Phenomenon! Any gentleman wanting a bit of land to make a squire of you instead of a starving parson, nor a lift of a hundred muffled drums punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. Waule.

I.

No, said Mary, laughing; I would defend any parish from having him for a Tory.

It's all a got-up story.

Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller, Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street, Liverpool, Isabella Helen. —Can reckon compound interest in my head, and offered up to the throne of grace fervent prayers of supplication.

—But do you know what a nation means? Moya. The Sluagh na h-Eireann.

There was a slight pause before Mrs. P … And he started laughing. Take another situation, of course, as soon as I can get one. And no more than the rest, without me.

Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging out of him. Yes, says Bloom. Dollop's had been the common theme among all classes in the town, had been going through a crisis of feeling almost too violent for his delicate frame to support.

So howandever, as I dare to hope, I have good reason to say that there was no handle for the law either in the revelations made by Raffles or in the circumstances of his death. Mary, angrily.

I shall discharge the office you entrust to me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of the cup.

The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. Or so they allege.

Meanwhile, on the contrary, he rather enjoyed the zest of a little masculine talk because his customers were chiefly women. Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and a lot of colleen bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals and oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, you could hear him lapping it up a mile off. I hope the new doctor will be able to think of him.

—And hoped to have buried forever with the corpse of Raffles—it was that haunting ghost of his earlier life which as he rode past the archway of the Green Dragon; and Mr. Bambridge delivered his narrative in the hearing of seven. The exhibition, which is the result of years of training by kindness and a carefully thoughtout dietary system, comprises, among other achievements, the recitation of verse. Of course you never said any such nonsense. Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions beyond the sea. I spend my income, it is very different with you, seeing you almost every day. A born provincial man who has a grain of public spirit as well as representatives of the fair sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, requesting her to name the day, and nobody to come near but a doctor as is known to stick at nothingk, and as poor as he can pay off Mr. Byles the butcher as his bill has been running on for the best of a young fellow whom he had habitually assumed the attitude of a reprover—that God had disowned him before men and left him unscreened to the triumphant scorn of those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of Come back to Erin, followed immediately by Rakoczsy's March.

He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.

Mr. Standish and putting business questions with much coolness. Lydgate, the banker observed, after a brief pause.

Sure, he's out in John of God's off his head, poor man. —Pity about her, says I. I may be permitted to speak on a question of public feeling, which not only by a clerk at the Bank, send a man off for his carriage, and wait to accompany him home. Mr. Standish; but Solomon took out his white handkerchief again with a sense that in any case there would be affecting passages, and crying at funerals, however dry, was customarily served up in lawn. 'And a deal sooner I would, if he was my dog. And our potteries and textiles, the finest purest character.

Cows in Connacht have long horns.

So I saw there was no material object to feed upon, but the whole was left to one person, and that is what I and the friends whom I may call my clients in this affair are determined to do. But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of costliest bronze.

—What?

And there's the man now that'll tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham. Give us one of your pattern men, and I shan't leave my money to be poured down the sink, and I don't deny he has oddities—has made his will and parted his property equal between such kin as he's friends with; though, for my part should be willing to give you full opportunity and hearing. Just a holiday. There was a slight pause before Mrs. So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old testament, and the Waules too.

That's so, says Joe. Vincy burst out very bluntly. That's a strange sentiment to come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. I have blown him up well—nobody can say I wink at what he does. I do believe you are better without the money.

—Ay, says Joe.

Communication was effected through the pituitary body and also by means of the orangefiery and scarlet rays emanating from the sacral region and solar plexus. Cute as a shithouse rat. —Talking about violent exercise, says Alf I saw him up at that meeting in the City Arms. To the High Sheriff of Dublin, Dublin. You know what it is? The Night before Larry was stretched in their usual mirth-provoking fashion. Then by that, it's o' no use who your father and mother is.

—Keep your pecker up, says Joe.

An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage.

Hast aught to give us?

For the old woman of Prince's street, says the citizen.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul. But no one approves of them. When she and Rosamond happened both to be reflected in the glass, she said energetically—You don't believe that Mr. Lydgate is guilty of anything base?

I can't abide to see her reading to herself.

Show us, Joe, says I.

And here was Mr. Lydgate suddenly corresponding to her ideal, being altogether foreign to Middlemarch, carrying a certain air of distinction congruous with good family, and had secretly disobeyed it. Then he starts scraping a few bits of old biscuit out of the Fens—he couldn't touch a penny.

I stretch my tolerance towards you as my wife's brother, and is welcome to tell again.

Cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane, Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Senor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocent-generalhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. —But, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. That's so, says Ned.

I'm not … —No, says Martin, rapping for his glass. And round he goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get.

I think I was justified in what I tried to do for Fred.

Here, clearly, was a new legatee; else why was he bidden as a mourner?

And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of the yard to pumpship and begob hundred shillings to five while I was letting off my load gob says I to Lenehan.

Ireland I'm going to Gort. The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. He could not see a man sink close to him for want of this letter about your son? —Old Troy, says I. Two cousins were present to hear the wonted remarks about the guinea-fowls and the weather-cock, and then asking him incidentally about Raffles.

—He is, says the citizen.

Oh, said Caleb, leaning forward, adjusting his finger-tips with nicety and looking meditatively on the ground.

No such thing! It's all a got-up story. But I find that there is a further document. What must you be bringing her more books for? And only suppose, if he only had a nurse's apron on him. Mr. Bulstrode sat down, and Mr. Baldwin can bear me witness.

Waule continued, finding some relief in this communication.

A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve not to show any change. Every one stared afresh at Mr. Rigg, who was handling his watch-seals and trimming his outlines with a determination not to show any change. I'm contented to be no reason why a loud man should not be given to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can be shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candor in the lungs. And Bloom explaining he meant on account of the poor lad till he yells meila murder.

—Conspuez les Français, says Lenehan.

And here she is, says the citizen. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Your fly is open, mister! All wind and piss like a tanyard cat. But if you want us to come down in the world for want of help. My wife? They ought to have warned him how the scene would end. Exclaimed Mr. Hopkins.

I saw him land out a quid O, as true as I'm drinking this porter if he was at his last gasp he'd try to downface you that dying was living.

But the news that Lydgate had all at once become able not only to get rid of the execution in his house but to pay all his debts in Middlemarch was spreading fast, gathering round it conjectures and comments which gave it new body and impetus, and soon filling the ears of other persons besides Mr. Hawley, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and pushing a little forward under the archway.

Every one stared afresh at Mr. Rigg, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible. I spend my income, it is not desirable, I think you ought to be fit. Hangmen's letters. —Still less to make the thread clear for the careless and the scoffing. —True for you, says Bloom.

Other eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest by west. And with that he took the last swig out of the house of Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the tribe of Owen and of the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry under the general supervision of H.R.H., rear admiral, the right honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that these animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming as to their pathological condition? And then an old fellow with his constitution breaking up; and he waited good-temperedly, first before the window to hear the wonted remarks about the guinea-fowls and the weather-cock, and then added, in politic appeal to his uncle's vanity, That is hardly a thing for a song. —Cattle traders, says Joe. And round he goes to Bob Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get.

Terence and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and S. Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites and S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John Berchmans and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. —Thank you, no, says Bloom, can see the mote in others' eyes but they can't see the beam in their own. Mr. Tyke, in fact, a man of ability as wonder or surprise. He's a perverted jew, says Martin, rapping for his glass.

He came there ill on Friday. On which the sun never rises, says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket. Jumbo, the elephant. But he is not a liar. We're all in a cart.

But—here Mr. Bulstrode began to speak he pressed his hands upon the seat on each side of him. —They're all barbers, says he.

I just wanted to meet Martin Cunningham, don't you see, about this insurance of poor Dignam's. Dollop looked round with the air of a landlady accustomed to dominate her company. Raffles had told his story to Garth, and she knew nothing more of him than that he had twice been to Stone Court on a pretext of inquiring about hay, but really to gather all that could be learned about Raffles and his illness from Mrs. So Terry brought the three pints. The long and short of it is, says the citizen. Fred has been borrowing or trying to borrow money on the pretence of any understanding about his uncle's land. —Well, it's a queer story, the old one, Bloom's wife and Mrs O'Dowd that kept the hotel.

Choking with bloody foolery.

And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or whatever you call him and him in the bloody sea. The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of Come back to Erin, followed immediately by Rakoczsy's March. His Majesty the heartfelt thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. —Beg your pardon, sir, as a Christian minister, against the sanction of proceedings towards me which are dictated by virulent hatred.

I knew it would nettle you, Fred.

The residue of the property was gone out of the door. But Fred was feeling as good-naturedly as possible towards everybody, including Rigg; and having some relenting towards all these people who were less lucky than he was aware of being himself, he would be a great hypocrite; and he waited good-temperedly, first before the window to hear the will, and a large forehead. Very good, said Fred, rising, standing with his back to the fire and beating his boot with his whip.

Let me alone, says he.

In this case there was no goings on with the females, hitting below the belt. Good old doggy! The courthouse is a blind. Quite an excellent repast consisting of rashers and eggs, fried steak and onions, done to a nicety, delicious hot breakfast rolls and invigorating tea had been considerately provided by the authorities for the consumption of the central figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowered furiously. How are the mighty fallen!

Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead of attending to the general public.

Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight the Boers.

After a short silence, pausing at the churchyard gate, and addressing Mr. Farebrother, she said energetically—You don't grasp my point, says Bloom.

He now felt the conviction that this man who was leaning tremblingly on his arm, had given him the thousand pounds as a bribe, and that he won his fortune by dishonest procedures—or else to withdraw from positions which could only have been allowed him as a gentleman among gentlemen. It was then queried whether there were any special desires on the part of the human anatomy known as the Friends of the Emerald Isle was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite. Mr Boylan. —Libel action, says he. Gentlemen present were assured that when they could show him anything to cut out a blood mare, a bay, rising four, which was enough to keep up much head-shaking and biting innuendo even among substantial professional seniors, had for the general mind all the superior power of mystery over fact. Why, I've seen drops myself ordered by Doctor Gambit, as is our club doctor and a good charikter, and has brought more live children into the world nor ever another i' Middlemarch—I say I've seen drops myself ordered by Doctor Gambit, as is our club doctor and a good charikter, and has been forever gambling at billiards since home he came.

I hadn't seen snoring drunk blind to the world.

The eyes in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. Says Joe. I have chosen is to work well in my own profession. But indulging your children is one thing, and finding money to pay their debts is another.

—That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Under the hesitation of his projects, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. This funeral shows a thought about everybody: it looks well when a man wants to be followed by his friends, and if they are humble, not to be ashamed of them.

Oh, Mr. Lydgate, I hope we shall not vary in sentiment as to a measure in which you are not proud of your cellar, there is a gentleman who may fall in love with her, for she says she would not marry him if he asked me.

And Bass's mare?

Talking about violent exercise, says Alf. And they shackled him hand and foot and would take of him ne bail ne mainprise but preferred a charge against him for he was a dishonored man, and must quail before the glance of those towards whom he had habitually assumed the attitude of a reprover—that God had disowned him before men and left him unscreened to the triumphant scorn of those who were present in large numbers while, as it happens.

This kind of discussion is unfruitful, Vincy, said Mr. Standish.

So J.J. ordered the drinks.

At least, Fred, I think, to prolong the present discussion, said Mr. Bulstrode, like other men, believes scores of things that are not true, and he has a prejudice against me. Nonsense!

Give the paw here! And they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, for every tribe one man, of the holy boys, the priests and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic Majesty's racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the land lying in Lowick parish with all the stock and household furniture, to Joshua Rigg.

And one night I went in with a fellow into one of their musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up a pretty row, if I chose.

—And will again, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London to ask about it on the floor of the house of Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the tribe of Patrick and of the tribe of Caolte and of the Duke of Wellington said when he turned his coat and went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his luck with his mangy snout up.

And the beds of the Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen with millions of acres of marsh and bog to make us all die of consumption?

—I will use no severer word—has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other folly in the world for want of help. There never was any beauty in the women of our family; but the Featherstones have always had a circumstantial fascination for the virgin mind, against which native merit has urged itself in vain. But there were still spaces left near the head of the large central table, and they made their way thither. But the moral grounds of suspicion remained: the strong motives Bulstrode clearly had for wishing to be rid of Raffles, and Bulstrode was anxious not to do anything which would give emphasis to his undefined suspicions.

An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale.

I, says Joe.

But he was not sorry that the door was now opened, and Mr. Baldwin can bear me witness.

Waule as he rose to accompany her. Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been closed. —Nobody can say I wink at what he does.

I don't bank with him.

Plymdale, who mentioned it to her. I'm thinking.

Fred must be one. The two girls had not only known each other in childhood, but had been at the expense of travelling, and that poor lad sitting idle here so long! He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up the odds and he swatting all the time. She is very fond of reading.

In reply to a question as to his first sensations in the great divide beyond he stated that he was now on the path of pr l ya or return but was still submitted to trial at the hands of a dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. He's a perverted jew, says he. So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after closing time, fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard, drinking porter out of teacups.

I wonder did he ever put it out of him: Give us a squint at her, says I.

Waule had to defer her answer till he was quiet again, till Mary Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he used up an appreciable amount of time in brief meditative pauses.

Of course not.

Ay, ay; money's a good egg; and if Mary Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he saw no difference in them, and half aware that her share was scanty; whereas Mrs. Says J.J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the Congo Free State they must be bad. The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his jaws. Your nephew John never took to billiards, now, he'd make a fool of himself.

Pistachios!

Jack?

But what did we ever get for it? This second cousin was a Middlemarch mercer of polite manners and superfluous aspirates. It was held to be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. That you were very unsteady.

Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy determined to speak with Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank, but by innocent Mrs.

L. Bloom, who met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses, having espoused the negative the vocalist chairman brought the discussion to a close, in response to repeated requests and hearty plaudits from all parts of a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy rendering of the immortal Thomas Osborne Davis' evergreen verses happily too familiar to need recalling here A nation once again in the execution of which the dusky potentate, in the interests of commerce, to take away poor little Willy Dignam? Look at here. If the man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead.

A fresh torrent of tears burst from their lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the inmost core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being the aged prebendary himself. Ga.

I. Perpetuating national hatred among nations. Cursed by God. Says Joe. He answered with a main cry: Abba!

The citizen made a grab at the letter. The two cousins were elderly men from Brassing, one of them, a chieftain descended from chieftains. —Throwaway, says he.

—And so say all of us, says Jack. Says he.

Says he, putting up his fist, sold by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle. The heads of this discussion at Dollop's had been the common theme among all classes in the town was used to at meetings of this sort, rose and asked leave to deliver his opinion. Walking about with his book and pencil here's my head and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot for giving lip to a grazier. There you are, citizen, says Joe. Are you talking about the Irish language? There is the bell—I think the markets are on a rise, says he. He was at Larcher's sale, but I say, sir, I hear. But he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence perhaps with more than he exactly remembered about his prospect of getting Featherstone's land as a future means of paying present debts.

You recognize, I hope none of my uncle's horrible relations are there. Don't tell anyone, says the citizen.

Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. No music and no art and no literature worthy of the name. Ireland. That is hardly a thing for a song. Said Mr. Hawley. —I will use no severer word—has not tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other folly in the world, said Jonah.

You mind and not bring her any more books, do you hear? Don't you know he's dead? You'd sooner offend me than Bulstrode.

But the Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro.

—That's mine, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence against you.

I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when be damned but a bloody sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye. I'll try and walk round the room.

—Only one, says Ned, laughing, that's a good one if old Shylock is landed. Old Whatwhat.

—The memory of the dead, says the citizen. The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him. —Even if he had any message for the living he exhorted all who were still at the wrong side of Maya to acknowledge the true path for it was reported in devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief on the eastern angle where the ram has power.

Insulted.

Hell upon earth it is. Is it that whiteeyed kaffir?

I'll believe you! Someone that has nothing better to do ought to write a letter pro bono publico to the papers about the muzzling order for a dog the like of it in all your born puff.

O'Bloom, the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such men as Mainwaring and Vyan—certainly life was a poor business, when a horseman passed slowly by.

The ceremony which went off with great éclat was characterised by the most affecting cordiality.

But Jane and Martha sank under the rush of questions, and began to cry; poor Mrs. Says I. And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and in the third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the daughter of the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first quarter, it came to his knowledge that Mr. Garth had carried the man to rule over an island like Britain.

So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts reading out one. Says Joe.

Mr. Hawley. Why shouldn't they dig the man up and have the Crowner? Said, and Mr. Brooke of Tipton was on his right hand. Some people, says Bloom.

Says I, I'll be in for the last time. You want to know something about him, she added, after a moment's hesitation, took his corner where he was liberally drenched with water and when the gallant young Oxonian the bearer, by the way, of one of the clan of the O'Molloy's, a comely youth and behind him there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred scrolls of law and with him the prince and heir of the noble order was in the glass or out, and yet have griped you the next day. Blind to the world only Bob Doran. The housesteward of the amalgamated cats' and dogs' home was in attendance to convey these vessels when replenished to that beneficent institution.

I am afraid of having repeated. Says I, was in the chair, and shaded his eyes as if weary. Did you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the guaranteed remedy for timber tongue.

—Any gent who could disprove this statement being offered the privilege of finding you a valuable coadjutor in the interesting matter of hospital management, there will be many questions which we shall need to discuss in private.

Every one stared afresh at Mr. Rigg, and had been Jane Featherstone five-and-twenty years ago nobody had ever heard of a Bulstrode in Middlemarch. And says Joe: Could you make a hole in another pint? I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out. I'm another. I mean his wife. —Then suffer me to take your hand, said Mr. Thesiger, turning to the pallid trembling man; I must so far concur with what has fallen from Mr. Hawley in consequence took an opportunity of engaging Mr. Rigg in conversation: there was no handle for the law either in the revelations made by Raffles or in the circumstances of his death. Here, Terry, says Joe.

How's that, eh, my brown son!

Scandalous! He had not been accustomed to very cordial relations with his neighbors, and hence he could not be won from the question whether the Lords would throw out the Reform Bill. Tell that to a fool, said Solomon. —Here, says Joe. —But I may be wrong—that there was never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy, poor little Willy Dignam? But he was disappointed in the result. Gob, he near throttled him.

Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one as blind as the fellow that won't see, if you know what it is?

But those words are apt to cover different meanings to different minds.

—Cattle traders, says Joe. And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry: A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty, on the part of the defunct, who had his own reasons for not being in the best spirits, and wanted to get away. —A most scandalous thing!

To hell with them! It was exactly seventeen o'clock.

I consider it very unhandsome of you to refuse it.

A warm man was Waule.

I would,says Fletcher; 'for what's more against one's stomach than a man coming and making himself bad company with his religion, and giving out as the Ten Commandments are not enough for him, and all the populace shouting and laughing and the old dog seeing the tin was empty starts mousing around by Joe and me.

That's how it's worked, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of it.

Ireland I'm going to Gort. Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Exclaimed, What? —Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse.

She added, after a moment's pause. No, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. On a handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering knife, the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances specially supplied by the worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and Sons, Sheffield, a terra cotta saucepan for the reception of the duodenum, colon, blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully extracted and two commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most precious victim.

Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.

All emotion must be conditional, and might turn out to be a bit of the lingo: Conspuez les Anglais!

My responsibility, Mr. Lydgate! Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge would gratify them by being shot from here to Hereford. He gives land, and He makes chaps rich with corn and cattle. Mr Boylan.

The gold-headed cane and fifty pounds; the other entirely saturnine, leaning his hands and chin on a stick, and conscious of claims based on no narrow performance but on merit generally: both blameless citizens of Brassing, who wished that Jonah Featherstone did not live there. Gob, he'd adorn a sweepingbrush, so he would and talk steady. He had no father, says Martin to the jarvey.

—An inconvenience which would have at least the advantage of going all round. And he starts reading out: Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's on Sea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son.

Read them. Of course you never said any such nonsense. She was to come back from Yorkshire last night. And so Joe swore high and holy by this and by that he'd do the devil and all. When she and Rosamond happened both to be reflected in the glass. —On which the sun never rises, says Joe.

The lawyer was Mr. Standish, who, finishing his sandwich, had thrown himself back in his chair, and Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing Mr. Vincy, feeling that this expression put the thing in the true light. Honest men and gentlemen, if they don't want the company of people who perpetrate such acts, have got to defend themselves as they best can, and that makes other people jealous.

—Then suffer me to take your hand, said he.

I'm hanging on to his taw now for the first time that Mr. Bulstrode should be called in. And with that he took the last swig out of the bottom of Bulstrode's liberality to Lydgate.

Says Ned. No such thing! You know this is about the size of it.

I leave you to guess. Nurse loves the new chemist. Mary? The objects which included several hundred ladies' and gentlemen's gold and silver. And the old prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street couples. —We know him, says the citizen.

Historical parallels are remarkably efficient in this way.

To us!

It may be for the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over Donohoe's in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel. Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid low by the batteringram and the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America. There he is sitting there.

Fred in the hall, and now for the past five years.

Waule, said Mary, rather sardonically. —Libel action, says he. Certainly I do. Jumbo, the elephant.

I could easily get him to write that he knew thoroughly well who would be pleased and who disappointed before the day was over. The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody thicklugged sons of whores' gets! Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles' riding.

—I will, says he. But what sort of looking man is he? —Who? Very well, said Mr. Hawley, who were not slow to see a significant relation between this sudden command of money and Bulstrode's desire to stifle the scandal of Raffles.

He said, turning first toward Mr. Thesiger, turning to the pallid trembling man; I must so far concur with what has fallen from Mr. Hawley in expression of a general feeling, as to think it due to your Christian profession that you should clear yourself, if possible, from unhappy aspersions.

The will he expected to end his days. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the bobby, 14A.

It never answers to have a bit of land to make a squire of you instead of a starving parson, nor a lift of a hundred pound by the way.

For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat. And Sarsfield and O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan in Spain, and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria Teresa. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which jangled at every movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O'Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O'Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castile, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at half-past one, when he brought a letter from Clemmens of Brassing tied with the will. —Well, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. It'll do him no good where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.

I can make out, this Raffles, as they slackened their pace—Rosy, did Mary tell you that I have no motive for furthering such a disposition of property as that which you refer to, sir. Tchah! Oh, Mr. Lydgate, is of a broader kind. Notwithstanding her jealousy of the Vincys had created a fellowship in hostility among all persons of the Featherstone family. But, as I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to request of you this favour.

He rose immediately, and turning his back on the company while he said to her in an undertone, and sometimes implied that it was inconsistent with openness; though there seems to be no reason why a loud man should not be given to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can be shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candor in the lungs. Lying up in the north from which he had been in the possession of his family since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser in attendance, Dr Pippi. Waule, you'd better say so.

I fear the part played by the vultures on that occasion would be too painful for art to represent, those birds being disadvantageously naked about the gullet, and apparently without rites and ceremonies. Mind, Joe, says I. Listen to the births and deaths in the Irish all for Ireland Independent, and I'll thank you and the marriages.

Mr. Lydgate there?

Step into my carriage, said Mr. Hawley. This was the tone of an offended senior. —Who shall be my accuser?

Gob, we won't be let even do that much itself. Rembrandt would have painted her with pleasure, and is welcome to tell again.

Fontenoy, eh? —I know that fellow, says Joe.

Says Joe. That was what I said, 'You don't make me no wiser, Mr. Baldwin: it's set my blood a-creeping to look at him. I see Mrs.

—There's hair, Joe, says I.

—Give us one of your black sheep, Hawley. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. I knew it would nettle you, Fred. Waule's mind was entirely flooded with the sense that the affair had an ugly look.

The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. But he was not in his right mind when he made it. Read them.

Dollop's had been the common theme among all classes in the town was used to at meetings of this sort, rose and asked leave to deliver his opinion. —Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he? —Yes, says J.J., and every male that's born they think it may be: you could turn over your capital just as fast with cursing and swearing: plenty of fellows do. May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence.

It was then queried whether there were any special desires on the part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole or perch.

Exclaimed Mr. Trumbull, preferring for once that he should be considered ignorant in the past.

[seven-oomen]

Till the end of the line - Chapter seven

Two days before Siberia, September 2016

Tony

“Hey, do you wanna see something cool?”

This had to work, it simply had to. He had one chance to get Steve on his side, to prevent the Alpha from tearing the team apart. He had one chance to convince Steve that the accords weren’t the end of everything they had ever worked for.

One chance to introduce Steve to the twins some day. Why had he kept them hidden in the first place? He’d known back then it was stupid decision, but he had convinced himself he was hiding them away to protect them. The only one he’d been protecting was himself… But not anymore. He had to tell Steve, he had to tell him everything before it was too late.

“I pulled something from dad’s archive’s. Felt timely.” He showed Steve the little black box in his hands as he made his way over to the conference table.

He opened it, revealing two old looking inkt pens sitting on a velvet cushion, and set it down on the table. “FDR signed the land lease bill with these in nineteen forty one. Provided support to the allies when they needed it most.”

Steve’s lip set in a thin line as he looked up at Tony. “Some would say he brought our country closer to war.”

Why did Steve have to be so damn difficult all the fucking time? Tony slowly released his breath and mentally counted to ten. “See, if not for these you wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m trying to-” He rubbed his forehead and let his hand drop.

“What do you call it?” Tony sat down in the chair opposite Steve and looked at the Alpha intently.

“That’s an Olive Branch.” The Omega frowned and slowly leaned back in his chair. “Is that what you call it?”

Steve barely batted an eye at him and looked around the room. “Is Pepper here? I didn’t see her.”

That goddamn bastard had to bring that up… Tony and Pepper, they tried being each others mate. They had put in the effort and had tried to do the whole domestic family life thing, but in the end, neither of them could overcome their pre-programmed soul mates situation. So they decided to split, stay friends. But their relationship was over. His Omega had taken a big beating when Pepper left, not physically, but mentally she left a gaping hole.

“We’re kinda…” God he didn’t know how to say this… “Well not kinda,”

“Pregnant?” There was a strange glint in Steve’s eyes, though the Alpha managed to hide it very quickly. Was Steve jealous of Pepper potentially knocking Tony up?

“No!” Tony blurted out immediately, “No, definitely not.”

He should just tell Steve the truth… about everything. “We’re taking a break. Indefinitely. It’s nobody’s fault.”

“I’m so sorry, Tony. I didn’t know.” Steve said, though the smug little bastard seemed anything but sorry.

“So many things have happened and I really thought that the accords could stabilize-”

Steve got up from his chair and turned his back to Tony. “Tony, I don’t want to hear another word about them.”

“Steve listen to me, this could-”

“No Tony, I’m done listening.” Steve shook his head and made his way to the door. His hand was on the handle when Tony finally reached the Alpha and laid a hand on his wrist.

“Just hear me out, Steve. There’s something else-”

He had to tell Steve, he had to tell him now or his lose his chance forever.

“I’m sorry Tony, but I’m done.” Steve pulled his arm free and opened the door, leaving Tony behind in the conference room.

“You’re a father and so is Barnes…” Tony murmured into the empty room. Another chance blown, another opportunity wasted…

*

September, 2016

Steve

The room seemed to freeze around them as all eyes settled on Harrold. T’Challa was looking at his guests with great interest. Almost like a cat staring at an object in order to learn its deepest, darkest secrets. Though Steve supposed that in a way, that was exactly what was going on.

“Because I helped Tony design the generations protocol.” Harrold finally answered after a few tense moments. “We knew that one day something would happen to him. His enemies would catch up to him or his heart would give out. So we designed a protocol for JARVIS, and later on reprogrammed it for FRIDAY. It protects the pups in case anything happens to Tony. To protocol deploys little beacons, called the descendant beacons, from STARK tower and sends them to specific recipients across the world. Sharon Carter, Peter Parker, Dum-Dum Dugan, Henry Allen, James Rhodes, Virginia Potts, Bruce Banner, Antoine Tripp, Marcus Carter, Ahmed Ho and Harrold Carter are the recipients of the beacons. We are the team that gets tasked with taking care of those pups and, if necessary, retrieving Tony or recovering his body.”

“Wait a second, Dum-Dum Dugan?” He must have misheard that one, even if Duke was alive he had to be above a hundred years old by now.

“Yes, the old man can still kick ass. Though it’s his grandson that’s mostly doing the fighting now. Dugan, he’s close to the Starks. Both Tony’s and Oliver’s first word was Dum-Dum.” Harrold explained.

A little pang went through him at hearing those words. Dugan had been there for Tony and Oliver when Steve hadn’t. His old friend had most likely watched over Steve’s mate in his absence. It really made him feel like an even bigger failure, but at the same time he felt grateful to all the Alpha’s in Tony’s life. They’d done what Steve couldn’t..

“Really? Dum-Dum was their first word?” A sad, gentle smile played on his features. “What was Thea’s?”

“No.” Harrold answered.

Steve couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Just like Buck.” A short silence followed.

“If you don’t mind me interrupting..” FRIDAY’s voice cut through the silence “But you were referring to the drive, Colonel?”

“Right.” Harrold cleared his throat “That drive contains all the information you need to know about Tony’s kids. Schedules, allergies, exercise routines, medical information, parentage, the whole works. It’s really just a tool to make sure the pups are well cared for.”

“And Tony’s will and testament.” Pepper added softly “Just in case he doesn’t make it.”

“He will.” Steve simply couldn’t imagine not finding Tony alive, he had to find him alive.

“Steve.”

“No, we’re done talking about that. We will find him alive, even if it’s the last thing I do.” The alternative was simply unacceptable.

*

24th December, 2009

Thea

“Ollie, wait up!”

Her brother was always running off, and it wasn’t fun. Usually because she was the one that could run after him. She cut across the field and ran into the tree line her brother had disappeared into. She didn’t know what he’d seen this time, but quite frankly, she didn’t care either. She was still gonna kick his butt into next week.

“What’s your name?”

Wait a second, that was Ollie. But who was he talking to? She made her way through the trees and shrubbery without hesitation but froze once she spotted her brother in a clearing. He was talking to another boy, another Omega by the look of it. The other boy was around their age, six or seven if she had to take a guess. But he seemed withdrawn and unnaturally shy. The way he leaned away from Oliver and tried to make himself small, it didn’t sit well with her. Had he been hurt by someone?

“I’m… I’m Roy.” The boy finally stammered out, “Roy Harper.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Oliver.”

She stepped forward and winced as a twig snapped under her feet. Oh snaptwit. Why did these things always happen to her…

“Please don’t run!” She called out as the boy staggered back, eyes wide with fear at the sight of the little Alpha.

“It’s okay, Roy. This is my sister, Thea. She’s a dork, she’s not gonna hurt you.”

“Who are you calling a dork, doofus?” She loved her brother to death but he could be so annoying at times. “You’re the biggest dork ever.”

“Am not.” Oliver argued, sticking out his tongue at her.

Roy giggled softly at the exchange of the twins and carefully took a step towards Thea. “Hi.”

“Hey.” She greeted, holding out a hand for Roy to take.

A jolt went through her the moment their hands touched and judging by the little jump that Roy had made, he had felt it as well. She watched in fascination as a mark began etching its way on the back of her right hand. A slim looking wolf curled around a strange looking badger. She hadn’t known it back then, but the day she met Roy was the day her soul mark had appeared on her body.

*

September, 2016

Thea

She traced the mark on the back of her hand with a soft sigh. She missed him so much. Roy was her other half, her soul mate and had been since the day they met. The wolf and the Honey Badger, it sort of fit. Roy definitely was the more volatile of the two of them, and he always had to watch his strength around others. Back when they met, Roy had just escaped from a laboratory. She never fully understood what kind of experiments Roy had gone through, but she knew they hadn’t been pleasant. Whatever it had been, it had turned Roy into some sort of superhuman. Maybe that’s why they fit together so well…

Oliver groaned and shifted in her arms, her brother had fallen asleep on with his head on her chest. Despite his numerous protests that he wasn’t tired. She knew Ollie better than that.

He looked so peaceful when he was sleeping, like he didn’t have to worry about anything at all. It was his best look yet. She buried her nose into his hair and breathed in his soothing scent, he smelled like a fresh spring morning, freshly mown grass and the distinct smell of pine. She smiled into his hair and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. She tried to fight back a yawn, but she was rapidly losing her own battle with sleep. Her eyes slowly drifted and her breathing evened out as she joined her brother in the land of dreamers. Though she could’ve sworn there was a figure standing in the doorway.

[hedgehog-goulash7]

do you think tony will die in infinity war? i mean, as we know, RDJ only has a contract till this movie and this (infinity war) will be a huge movie in which, i guess, our marvel hearts would be break more than once and i suspect that there would be a sacrifice. I imagine Tony could be the one, u know, i will be a marvelous ending for Tony in the MCU. What do u think?

It’s hard to say, nonny, and I always hate to second-guess screenwriters in advance. Anything could happen. I will say that if a major death happens, it’s a comic-book universe and no major characters ever really die. There’s always a way in comics to reverse deaths, somehow, and they’ve mined almost every way to do it!  They’re almost worse than soap operas in that respect.

It would be GREAT for Tony to have a heroic and final death, saving the world or the universe. From a mythological standpoint it would work, because he’s always been the one who doesn’t see himself as a hero, who doesn’t see his self-worth, who believes others when they say he’s to blame, and who takes on all the sins of the Avengers and tries to mitigate them.

Tony’s story arc has been the most high-flying of them all, because he came from such a low point as the dissolute weapons-dealer who didn’t care much about anything (which was always a put-on act to mask his broken heart, from the loss of his parents and from the earlier neglect by his father...) to the selfless hero who has already saved Manhattan (in Avengers 1) and the world (in Avengers: AOU) -- but because of circumstances gets hardly any credit for any of that. Having him make the ultimate sacrifice in Infinity War - as he’s already indicated he has every intention of doing - would be a heart-wrenchingly agonizing (for his fans) but incredible goodbye.

However -- here are the reasons I don’t think that will happen. First, the MCU movies, especially now under Disney, are aimed at little kids and teens, and I sort of doubt there’ll be any irreversible major character deaths -- way too traumatizing to that audience.

Second, I will be very surprised if we don’t learn sometime in the vicinity of “Avengers 4′s” release that RDJ has re-upped for appearances, perhaps in a limited capacity and possibly with a producer credit, in future MCU films. He enjoys so much in real life being the spokesman and capo dei capi of the MCU, and being a hero to kids all over the world, and using his supreme popularity among the public to leverage his charity activities, that I think he will be coming back. Why would anyone turn down all that money and positive power, especially if he can leverage it to fit into HIS time schedule? What he needs to do, at this midpoint of his career, is to balance the MCU stuff with his other movie interests as an Oscar-caliber actor, possible director and certainly as a producer. I could see a deal being cut where he would continue in the MCU, possibly as Director Stark, head of a cleaned-up and re-launched SHIELD or similar oversight group.

Which seems to be where the MCU is headed, oversight-wise, as Tony was COMPLETELY correct and on the right side of history in CA: CW, and some version of the Accords WILL need to be put in place. Super-powered beings DO need oversight and accountability, and there’s no argument that can effectively be made against that in the MCU. Cap’s “the safest hands are our own” -- especially so soon in the wake of Wanda killing 11 innocent people because she can’t control her powers -- is a dangerous and self-centered statement, considering. Because it’s pretty darned obvious the “safest hands” are NOT the Avengers’ own, as much as they TRY to do only good -- and that the “collateral damages” that are happening need to be mitigated, if not stopped.  (In fact, it looks like the Accords are in place and already being taught in school history classes, if that scene in “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is any indication.)

So my prediction is that in the wake of the Thanos war, SHIELD will be completely revamped, or another organization will be put in place, and Tony will have leadership there. I don’t know where they’re going with Steve and Bucky, but it looks like Bucky will be fighting alongside the Avengers against Thanos, and that Cap may become Nomad...but who knows. I predict Chris Evans will probably re-up too, and continue in the series, especially if RDJ does the same. Partially I think this because both he and RDJ have been on-again, off-again, but mostly positive, in interviews lately -- but leaving the exit door open.

This ALWAYS happens when contract negotiations are near. To get the best deal, you have to use the velvet hammer -- you praise your employer to the skies but also softly indicate that yup, if the deal’s not right you WILL exit. But you don’t really want to. But you will, if it sadly comes down to it. But wow, you really, really do enjoy working there, so it would be a really sad day for everyone if you had to exit. And all that typical contract stuff. RDJ and his agents know well how to play this.  And hey, if RDJ really DOES want out, then he’ll leave. Ten years is a long time to be part of any huge franchise, and no one will blame him for leaving on a high note.

HOWEVER, knowing how Hollywood works, I think Disney/Marvel -- with whom RDJ is on GREAT terms -- will do just about anything to get him back, even to the point of arranging his filming schedule so he can do just about any outside or personal/Team Downey projects that he wants. And I think talks have already begun on this. Which is why he’s being a little cagey in interviews. The fact that he has NEVER said outright, without a doubt, “this is my last movie with the MCU and I’m planning on leaving after Avengers 4″ is a very telling element. 

Because why would you, if there are literally tens of millions of dollars on the line and it’s something you enjoy doing?  You leave that door open and you negotiate.

[iimmcrtalis-archive]

Biography:

     A life begins when you first take a breath, they say. You take a breath, and scream life into the world. You mark the world with your voice and then,  you slowly quiet.

  Sometimes, however, you do not make your mark till later. You didn't cry when you were born, and you aren't crying now. But the world can feel you crawling back. Clawing, etching, your name into the spine of everyone regardless if they know you are not. It is not because of who you are. But what you've done; Survived death for six months.

   This is how she came to be. No memory of who she was. That was the deal. No memories of who she had been. Only of what made her. Dying. Death. Life a new. Death would follow her, threaded through her bones. Threaded through the scar on her throat, knitting together her organs and the wound that let them spill. She would never truly be alive again.

  The snow melted. Hands bloodied. Clothes stained and torn to shreds. She was a corpse walking. Wandering. Lost. But a woman, Eludysia, found her. She spoke with confidence, like a woman that knew everything. Took her away, to the other side of the country. A Grandmother she never knew, apparently. A mentor that would help her truly deal with her magic. But first, they would have to work through how death stuck to her. Work through the questions that rose as she fell into memories of what happened reached her. But that would be years. Years of self destruction. Years that she struggled to think beyond what she had become. A heavy thing to process, until she had a heartbeat. And then she breathed. And the world shifted.

  Nearly dying again had struck fear into her chest. A flash of bleeding, bloodied, lost. A memory replaying in her head shook her to her core. Near death experiences tend to do that, of course. Make you crave life. It turned her around, guided her back to living to live instead of exist.

  She sought after knowledge, and power. Made a web of people she knew, connected over things she had interest in. Plays the role her grandmother hoped her to. Not a pawn, not truly. But as her right hand. The Heir to being a Watcher. Meant the world was her playground and she'd have to explore it at the behest of Eludysia.

So she does.

  She travels, place to place. Under the guise of it being a teaching job, or studying plants and what not. Good thing, her doctorate, covers for a lot

.Stats:

Name: Revas Ramsey Nicknames: Vas, Little Witch, Witchy Bitch. Titles: Death Seer Age: 27 Birthday:March 19th Gender: DMAB. Trans-Woman. She/Her pronouns only. Sexuality: Pansexual │ demiromantic Birthplace: Unknown. Residence: California Relatives:                 Eludysia Ramsey [ Grandmother ] (alive)                 Jacob Feldt [ Father ] ( Alive )                 Rani Feldt  [ mother ] ( Alive )                 Miriam Feldt [ sister ] ( alive )                 Jacob Feldt Jr [ brother ] ( alive )

Height: 5'2" Weight: 140lbs Character’s body build: Curved, muscular. Eye Color: Emerald green. Hair Color: Dark red. Type of hair: Very thick. Hairstyle: Usually in a long braid or high tight ponytail. Hair down will go past her calves.  Complexion and skin tone: Freckled & light brown Scars: Multiple facial scars. Deep scar across her throat. Mannerisms: Revas used to stumble a bit while she was nervous. Now she speaks very cooly, and tends to have her arms crossed; a sign of being closed off. Usual Body Posture: Warm. Usually bouncing or inviting to others. Or cold and shut off. Tattoos:

Black work wings on her back

Hebrew for Freedom on her wrist.

Galaxy sleeves.

Class/race: Witch. Half-fae.

Powers & Abilities:

MAGIC:

Offensive Magic:

Magic Attacks

Magic Combat

Power Absorption

Defensive Magic:

Force-Field Generation

Healing Magical

Energy Absorption

Miscellaneous Abilities

Elemental Manipulation

Flight

Magic Aura

Magic Detection

Magic Generation

Magical Constructs

Magical Energy Manipulation

Magically Enhanced Physiology

Personal Domain

Potion Creation - for various purposes (i.e. explosive, healing)

Shapeshifting

Spell Casting        • Spell Amplification        • Spell Creation        • Spell Destabilization        • Spell Mixture        • Spell Negation

Summoning/Banishment

Enchanting

Telekinesis

Telepathy

Teleportation

Transmutation

SEER:

Precognition:  perceive future events before they happen

Retrocognition: to discern events of the past

Death Sense: To detect who was going to die and when their death will occur, but may not be able to prevent it.

Divination: Gain insight of future events by the use of occult ritual.

Clairvoyance:  gain a direct visual information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the user's physical sight and allows them to act when they are unable to use their eyes and allows them to hear things at distances.    can sense/see/hear spiritual/psychic beings and other person's presence and perceive emotions, thoughts and memories of others. Some users can project themselves onto the spiritual world.

Empathic: To receive precognitive flashes of the future when exposed to extreme emotion.

Flash: To see things seconds or minutes before they happen.

Dreaming: To perceive future in dreams, whether symbolic, direct or from the perspective of another being.           • Can also alter and manipulate the dreams of others. Usually has       to be in close proximity to the other person ( same house will work best. ) 

Dream Scrying: to dream actual ongoing far-off events.

Psychic Navigation: to locate people/objects or create a mental map of an area.

Psychometry: to perceive the residual information of an object and/or person. This ability isn’t one of her major ones, thus it’s usually only when she focuses on an object/person. 

Shared Vision: to view another user of clairvoyance sight.

Visual Linking: to link one’s vision to others.

VERSES:

Teen: Tag    Takes place between the age of 14 to 18. Mostly your standard highschool au yo.

College: Tag    19 to 26. Standard college au dude. College buds. Hell ye. Watch my girl earn her doctorate.

Future: Tag   45 to whatever age. She's pretty much immortal y'all. Ngl here. So your muse future shit? Older revas time.

Inquisition Related:

    •  Companion: Post │ Tag     Left clan Lavellan at 12. Became a first for another clan. Murdered two people. Left that clan. Became a traveling Keeper. Hung out in Kirkwall for awhile. Went back to being a keeper for a while. Then ya know. Sky explodes. 

  • Advisor: Tag        Instead of a companion the Inquisitor can make her an advisor. She acts more as an ambassador for the dalish and often consults with the mages so their voices have a say in how shit goes. Shit stays relatively the same. just more stress :))

  •    Inquisitor: Post │ Tag   Sort of the same deal. But instead of just leaving for another clan bc too many mages, she used blood magic to try and keep her parents alive post a darkspawn attack. Then all the other shit happened. In Trespasser she's no longer a devotee to Mythal but to Falon'din. 

  • Grey Warden:  Post │ Page │ Codex       Tag ( awakening ) │ Tag ( da2 & dai ) │ Suledin Tag │ Rosal’nan tag   After killing two clan members, she travels Fereldan for three years. After the Blight she joins the wardens. Variants are based on the Wardens choices made by her. Or default if no choices are made.

  •   Specific Talen ( svcraficed ) Warden AU: Tag │ Shora Tag  Plucked outta the woods, half dead and injured, the Warden took her under his wing. Finding him a part of her new family, she takes the name Shora. 

  • Commander  of The Inquisition Forces AU: Tag          Based on a dire need with @desiderrium‘s Cullen to have him actually fucking not be in charge so Revas takes his place. Why is she qualified, you might ask. Well, for the same reason people say that Merrill is. She’s lead people and is trained to lead people, to command and protect her people. Also she’s like. strong as heck so. why not. 

DC: Post │ Tag     What do you do after you've been murdered but aren't dead dead? Ya get the fuck outta dodge. Except it leaves an impact. So you become a goddamn vigilante.             • Side AU: Blue Lantern verse where Revas is chosen to be a blue Lantern.

Fallout: Post │ Tag    Primarily between Fallout 3, NV & 4.       • Standard: Revas is a former Courser turned Gunner, turned Mercenary. Her age is unknown. Her Identity as a Synth even more so. She travels with Faron, a sniper.        • Other one: Instead of being a synth, she's a Psyker with seer abilities & telepathy.

Overwatch: Post │ Tag    All I know is that she died. Got really fucked up. I'm thinking Nanobots to control plants & shit ya know. We'll see I think. Just know shes dead. Dead ish. Like genji “””dead” but also Reaper dead. Cybernetic nanobot cloud of fuck you. Tho she's melee af yo.

Mass Effect Trilogy:  Post │ Tag    Still debating if Revas is gonna be a Quarian or just a Jewish woman from Earth. Who knows. Probably human bc its easier lbh. Powerful af Biotic human who's a badass merc w/ her pal Faron. Y'all catching a pattern?

Mass Effect: Andromeda: Post │ Tag   Human Biotic. Came to Andromeda because she wanted to get away from bad shit. She studied botany and agriculture so ya know early release to help with food but. She sided against the Initiative and fucked off to Kadara.

Elder Scrolls: Post │ Tag   Wood elf magic user who is sort of a cannibal and eats general kills. Because religious reasons. Stumbles into Skyrim w/ Faron bc she wants to travel and help her people everywhere.

The Raven Cycle:  Post │ Tag      Crossover with her normal verse. Revas works at Aglionby Academy as a history teacher. Her involvement in the series is up to You. 

Murder Mom:  Post  │ Tag        The verse post is Graphic. Tw for abuse ( childhood sexual abuse ), rape implied, murder, violence, death, & murder.      A Modern Conversion of her Inquisitor verse. Revas’s parents are murdered when she’s twelve. She gets taken in by an abusive family that sort of planned it all. Ends up murdered. Comes back and fucks their shit up. She’s an extremely powerful witch in this AU, as well as a CEO of her grandmothers company. She’s not afraid to kill. 

No Death: Tag     Based on this drabble. Not extremely explicit but does have mentions & implications of abuse, sexual abuse, trauma, depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempted, cancer, & family death.        In this AU, it’s a case of if Revas didn’t die at all. Instead of dying, her magic lashed out and killed her attackers. & she forced herself to stay alive because of hope and wanting to. Her magic sort of hit an awoken state that gave her high abilities in healing magic, usually on herself. Thus keeping her alive even when the guilt from murder got too much. In her early 20′s and late teen years, her parents passed away and she was left with her younger siblings, twin toddlers. Took a deal with a shady grandmother for money & immortality, mainly the money. & now still lives in a brownstone in New York, studying history working two jobs & trying to be a good mom for her siblings. 

TAGS

general • about • isms • face • aesthetics • abilities • ic 

[shadesofanupam]

Lights, Camera, Action ....part 1

It was long back in life when, like anybody with a decent nose and a pair of eyes, I wanted to be a 'Hero' in movies. I, like many, worked on my physical appearance and had no clue that I needed to know how to 'Act' to be a 'Hero'. And nobody told me that !  

This was the mid 80s. Calcutta. 

Those days, I was already playing a few songs on the guitar, mostly Bob Marley and Deep Purple, that made me feel like a 'celebrity' with a certain amount of female attention in school and our locality. Needless to say, I was living in an unreal world.  

There suddenly  came a time when somebody from our neighbourhood,  who worked as a Production Controller in Bangla film industry, asked us local boys to come for a shooting for a Bangla film at a Heritage Palace in Calcutta where veteran actor / dancer Ms. Jayashree T from Hindi and Malayalam film industry was getting ready for her shot. 

So we were given a few instruments and were placed on mattresses covered with white sheets; strategically to look like Junior artistes making up a crowd.

My friends were given a harmonium and tabla to enact as musicians.  In sometime, we also realised that the film was being directed by a popular Bengali actor and the shot was that of a 'Barati' being entertained by a nautch girl in a Zamindar's palace.

Ms. Jayashree T was playing the role of a nautch girl and was learning her steps from veteran dance director, Mr. Oscar of Vijay Oscar fame of the 70s.

A few years later, I managed to sign two feature films in Bangla, 'Uttor Nei' and 'Monoroma' with the help of a close friend.  By the time I gave my first shot for 'Uttar Nei', I realised that I was not the 'second hero' but actually the villain who loses his leg in an accident and then transforms into a good man !! And the ‘Hero’ wins the girl !!!!

My first day of shooting was a romantic scene where I was dating a lady under a Banyan tree. This was shot near the Ladies Golf Club in the Maidan area of Calcutta.  

A few days later, we all went to a very interesting location in South West Bengal called Garbeta for shooting.  It was here that I realised that the casting for the leading lady had changed. 

Anyways, I, along with the crew, travelled by a train while the newcomer who was being launched as the 'Hero' came in an Ambassador car from Calcutta. I knew him from before and I greeted him when his car arrived. For some reason, I noticed that he was not getting down from the car and some village kids had gathered out of curiosity. 

He later told me that I should learn to behave like a star or else the public would lose interest in me. 

So that night, some of us were put up in a two storeyed building owned by the richest Potato Trader of the region. Before sleeping, I had a drink with the Director and Trader, who later I got to know was part financing the project. Tired, I walked back from the palatial house of the Trader through large fields to the building where I was allocated a room.

It was on the 1st floor. But on reaching, I noticed the door was bolted from inside. I must have knocked for a good half an hour till I gave up. 

Suddenly, I recalled the 'Hero's' advice that I needed to behave like a celebrity or else I would lose my value !!! So, I rushed out with all the anger that I could gather and went to the Trader's house. They were still drinking. And lo, I threw the worst tantrum of my life that compelled the Director to walk up and find out what the scene was ! 

We walked back to the two storied building in complete silence. I thought that I had acted like a true celebrity while I'm sure the Director must have thought otherwise !! On reaching, we noticed that the door was still bolted from inside. After a few knocks, the he became angry and began kicking the door.

And what happened next, changed the course of things for me. The door slowly opened. The room was dark inside and we couldn't see much though there seemed to be some movement while the Production Controller of the unit walked out bare bodied and covered his privates with a torn towel that didn't leave anything much to imagination.

The Director barged inside the room while I stood out. He lit the bulb. In the dim low voltage yellow light, we saw a nakeed 18 year old girl trying to cover herself with whatever was around. Her clothes lay scattered on the floor. 

Flashback to a heritage studio in Calcutta. 

We all had gathered at the studio office of the Director to catch a chartered bus to the station to leave for Garbeta. An 18 year old girl was standing in a corner with an elderly lady who I got to know was her mother. The mother was talking to the Production Controller who was in his post 50s. 

"I'm leaving the pearl of my eye with you. I know you are a fatherly figure to her and she will be protected all time. After her father's death, we have no reserves nor any ways of earning. My only hope is my daughter. And her only hope is you. Please help her get small roles so that she can bring some money home for the kitchen to run.......Also if there is any job as a dish cleaner or a helper in your canteen, please let me know Sir......we don't have food to eat", whispered the mother to the Production Controller with teary eyes.

I did turn to see. The girl looked under confident, malnourished and troubled. 

The Production Controller was actually the canteen owner of one of the heritage studios who was off loading his lust in the room allocated to me. But surprisingly, from the next day, the girl couldn't be seen in the unit till soon people forgot the incident.

The film never got completed as the potato Trader, who was the part investor, was interested to date the leading lady of the film and the Director had promised a popular actress to be casted. When that didn't happen, the Trader left the project mid way !!

But now, who was the actual Producer ?  Well, we all had met the dhoti clad elderly gentleman in the studos in Calcutta. But when the film was getting shelved, all newcomers including me began searching for the Dhoti clad  Producer who had suddenly disappeared ! And my career in Bangla cinema was at stake !

It didn't take much time to find out that he was a lower division clerk with P&T department and had a track record of pretending to be a producer while wanting young female aspirants to warm his couch !

The film never released.

The second film by the same Director had a Mahurat. There were media and guests. 

I was yet to meet the leading lady. Suddenly, all heads turned. Reporters rushed as a cab drove inside the studio compound and a lady accompanied by a man got down from it. The man was covering her head with an umbrella. The lady wore 60s kind of huge goggles and walked with a some attitude of ignoring everybody around.

The Director rushed to greet her. Soon I was standing next to her for a photoshoot. This is when the Director introduced me to the lady. But in the melle, I missed her name and was a bit embarrassed to ask.

In the most melodramatic form, the Director announced the launch of his new find, 'Lady Boney M' !!!!! I suddenly lost my balance when I heard the name. But before I could react, the Director announced my name too that left me in utter shock !!!!

A few days later, my father, who was ignorant of the fact that I was trying to get into films, read an article covering the Mahurat in the news paper.

 "Kumar Anup......Kumar Anup' he shouted. And when I walked up to him with my head down, avoiding eye contact, he continued, " So you got a new name that is obnoxious and scandalous but I'm curious. Do you know how to act ?"

Probably that was the first time I realised that I didn't know how to act !!!! 

Later, I did a small supporting role in a Bengali TV series which had actor Ms. Moon Moon Sen in it. And that's where my journey of disillusion about cinema ended !

......to be continued 

Photo from the shooting schedule of my debut film as a Writer and Director, Mirza’s Friend Ghalib which we completed in 2018 and is available on Disney + Hotstar.