mona lisa painting

after dark that can be: there's no track at all over the bog. And then
it is such a bitter night- the keenest wind you ever felt. You had
better send word, sir, that you will be there in the morning.'
But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and
without one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine
o'clock: he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough
he was: but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed
an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and
deny, and was on better terms with himself.
I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It
was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it
in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the
freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's
spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning
till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk; and their
discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I
preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St.
John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was
seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered,