The chimney ran through the room forming a sort of unique centre-piece.
This and more I accepted, wearily, and then sank down by the bed and
cried. Outside, before the one small window, stood a peach tree.
Afterward, when this had grown to be a very dear little room to me, I
looked out cheerfully through its branches, warm with sunshine, and
fragrant with bloom; but now it was bare and ghostly, and, as the wind
blew, one forlorn twig trailed back and forth across the window.
For an hour or more after my head touched the pillow, I lay awake
listening to the unaccustomed sound of the surf and those skeleton
fingers tapping at the pane.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TURKEY MOGUL ARRIVES.
I studied Becky Weir in school, the next day, with special interest. She
was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, with the stately, substantial
presence of one of nature's own goddesses. She had a fresh, constant
color in her cheeks, a pure, low forehead, and eyes that were clear,
gray, and large, but with a strangely appealing, helplessly animal
expression in them, I fancied, as she lifted them, oft-times, to mine.
She was distinguished among my young disciples by the faithful, though
evidently labored and wearisome attention, she gave to her books.
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