Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AS LOCHINVAR ALL through the fifteen years of their married r life Mrs. Laurence had cherished a secret longing that some day Will would surprise her by carrying her off bodily, as it were, from the toil and tangles of her household labours—like a domestic Lochinvar—while she thrilled at his forcefulness. It had been a broiling day. As she sank down in the big chair in the shaded corner of the piazza after her fourth journey to the cellared ice-box since dressing, she hoped fervently that nothing would disturb her rest for an hour or more, until Will and his guest, young Mr. Sains, for whom the cold dinner had been preparing all day, should arrive from the train. Delusively cool and fresh as she looked, in her white gown with the long coral beads that contrasted so effectively with her dark hair, she felt both hot and exhausted. She had a somewhat guilty consciousness, indeed, of having worked with a foolish intemperance—she had been on her feet almost constantly since she rose. It had been in direct disregard of her husband's advice that she had let the maid off on her two- weeks' vacation—after the fourteen-year-old Robert had gone to camp—with the hazy idea of havinga free, restful time alone with Will. She felt now that she had had no idea that the weather would be like this, or of the place that ice-box would play in the scheme of things. And Will, with the best intentions, was no help at all. It had often been a wonder to Mrs. Laurence how he ever achieved the cooking and dish-washing he bragged so much about on his fishing-trips, he was so inadequate at home! Perhaps she was too capable herself to welcome suggestions from another —perhaps, also, her strictly feminine directions didn't always have that clarity which is necessary for the enlighte...