if thetruth had been known

 　　"My father was a gentleman; and I shall never forget it, though I dogo out to service. I've got no rich friends to help me up, but,sooner or later, I mean to find a place among cultivated people; andwhile I'm working and waiting, I can be fitting myself to fill thatplace like a gentlewoman dermes , as I am."With this ambition in her mind, Christie took notes of all that wenton in the polite world, of which she got frequent glimpses while"living out." Mrs. Stuart received one evening of each week, and onthese occasions Christie, with an extra frill on her white apron,served the company, and enjoyed herself more than they did.

　　While helping the ladies with their wraps, she observed what theywore, how they carried themselves, and what a vast amount ofprinking they did, not to mention the flood of gossip they talkedwhile shaking out their flounces and settling their topknots.

　　Later in the evening, when she passed cups and glasses, thisdemure-looking damsel heard much fine discourse, saw many famousbeings, and improved her mind with surreptitious studies of the richand great when on parade. But her best time was after supper, when,through the crack of the door of the little room where she wassupposed to be clearing away the relics of the feast, she looked andlistened at her ease; laughed at the wits, stared at the lions,heard the music, was impressed by the wisdom, and much edified bythe gentility of the whole affair.

　　After a time, however, Christie got rather tired of it, for therewas an elegant sameness about these evenings that became intenselywearisome to the uninitiated, but she fancied that as each had hispart to play he managed to do it with spirit. Night after night thewag told his stories elyze , the poet read his poems, the singers warbled,the pretty women simpered and dressed, the heavy scientific was dulydiscussed by the elect precious, and Mrs. Stuart, in amazingcostumes, sailed to and fro in her most swan-like manner; while mylord stirred up the lions he had captured, till they roared theirbest, great and small.

　　"Good heavens! why don't they do or say something new andinteresting, and not keep twaddling on about art, and music, andpoetry, and cosmos? The papers are full of appeals for help for thepoor, reforms of all sorts, and splendid work that others are doing;but these people seem to think it isn't genteel enough to be spokenof here. I suppose it is all very elegant to go on like a set oftrained canaries, but it's very dull fun to watch them, and Hepsey'sstories are a deal more interesting to me."Having come to this conclusion, after studying dilettanteism throughthe crack of the door for some months reenex, Christie left the "trainedcanaries" to twitter and hop about their gilded cage, and devotedherself to Hepsey, who gave her glimpses into another sort of lifeso bitterly real that she never could forget it.

to be my wife

She had reached the door, when she heard his step. "No! it's not honest. What have I to be afraid of? I have done nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I'll tell the truth. And with him one can't be ill at ease. Here he is," she said to herself, seeing his powerful, shy figure, with his shining eyes fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as thought imploring him to spare her, and gave her hand.
"It's not time yet; I think I'm too early serviced apartments hong kong ," he said glancing round the empty drawing room. When he saw that his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became gloomy.
"Oh, no," said Kitty, and sat down at the table.
"But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone," be began, not sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose courage.
"Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired.... Yesterday..."
She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him Medilase.

He glanced at her; she blushed, and ceased speaking.
"I told you I did not know whether I should be here long...that it depended on you..."
She dropped her head lower and lower , not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was coming.
"That it depended on you," he repeated. "I meant to say...I meant to say...I came for this...!" he brought out, not knowing what he was saying; but feeling that the most terrible thing was said, he stopped short and looked at her...
She was breathing heavily, not looking at him. She was feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had never anticipated that the utterance of love would produce such a powerful effect on her. But it lasted only an instant. She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and seeing his desperate face, she answered hastily:
"That cannot be...forgive me."
A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote from him she had become now!
"It was bound to be so," he said, not looking at her.
He bowed, and was meaning to retreat.

But at that very moment the princess came in. There was a look of horror on her face when she saw them alone, and their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty did not speak nor lift her eyes. "Thank God, she has refused him," thought the mother, and her face lighted up with the habitual smile with which she greeted her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life in the country. He sat down again, waiting for other visitors to arrive, in order to retreat unnoticed.
Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty's Metro Ethernet, married the preceding winter, Countess Nordston.
She was a thin, sallow, sickly, and nervous woman, with brilliant black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her affection for her showed itself, as the affection of married women for girls always does, in the desire to make a match for Kitty after her own ideal of married happiness; she wanted her to marry Vronsky. Levin she had often met at the Shtcherbatskys' early in the winter, and she had always disliked him. Her invariable and favorite pursuit, when they met, consisted in making fun of him.
"I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of his grandeur, or breaks off his learned conversation with me because I'm a fool, or is condescending to me. I like that so; to see him condescending! I am so glad he can't bear me," she used to say of him.

If I could regret having

“I fell asleep and was dreaming,” I said, lest any strong language, founded on the r?le he played in my dream, should have escaped me. “I did not know for some moments where I was.”

“You are the young gentleman who has the apartments over the Count and Countess de St. Alyre?” he said, winking one eye, close in meditation, and glaring at me with the other.

“I believe so — yes,” I answered.

“Well, younker, take care you have not worse dreams than that some night,” he said, enigmatically HKUE DSE , and wagged his head with a chuckle. “Worse dreams,” he repeated.

“What does Monsieur the Colonel mean?” I inquired.

“I am trying to find that out myself,” said the Colonel; “and I think I shall. When I get the first inch of the thread fast between my finger and thumb, it goes hard but I follow it up, bit by bit, little by little, tracing it this way and that, and up and down, and round about, until the whole clue is wound up on my thumb, and the end, and its secret, fast in my fingers. Ingenious! Crafty as five foxes! wide awake as a weasel! Parbleu! if I had descended to that occupation I should have made my fortune as a spy. Good wine here?” he glanced interrogatively at my bottle.

“Very good,” said I. “Will Monsieur the Colonel try a glass?”

He took the largest he could find, and filled it, raised it with a bow, and drank it slowly. “Ah! ah! Bah! That is not it,” he exclaimed, with some disgust, filling it again. “You ought to have told me to order your Burgundy, and they would not have brought you that stuff.”

I got away from this man as soon as I civilly could, and, putting on my hat, I walked out with no other company than my sturdy walking-stick. I visited the inn-yard, and looked up to the windows of the Countess’s apartments HKUE DSE . They were closed, however, and I had not even the unsubstantial consolation of contemplating the light in which that beautiful lady was at that moment writing, or reading, or sitting and thinking of — anyone you please.

I bore this serious privation as well as I could, and took a little saunter through the town. I shan’t bore you with moonlight effects, nor with the maunderings of a man who has fallen in love at first sight with a beautiful face. My ramble, it is enough to say, occupied about half an hour, and, returning by a slight détour, I found myself in a little square, with about two high gabled houses on each side, and a rude stone statue, worn by centuries of rain HKUE DSE, on a pedestal in the center of the pavement. Looking at this statue was a slight and rather tall man, whom I instantly recognized as the Marquis d’Harmonville: he knew me almost as quickly. He walked a step towards me, shrugged and laughed:

“You are surprised to find Monsieur Droqville staring at that old stone figure by moonlight. Anything to pass the time. You, I see, suffer from ennui, as I do. These little provincial towns! Heavens! what an effort it is to live in them!  formed in early life a friendship that does me honor, I think its condemning me to a sojourn in such a place would make me do so. You go on towards Paris, I suppose, in the morning?”