Love or Lucre Author:Robert Black General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1879 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE. Trusty Thojias, or rather Mr. Triggs, for he was on his own dunghill, turned, with Grim at his heels, into a little room sufficiently well lighted by one pretty large window, looking upon the river, and having on the sill a box of sweet-scented flowers. Of furniture there was not much. A dingy carpet there was; an easy-chair stood close by the window; a few other chairs were scattered here and there ; half-a-dozen prints hung upon the walls, and appeared to represent subjects highly interesting to flydom; and drawn up beside the easy- chair was a small round table, covered with a snow-white cloth, and supporting everything, except a tea-pot or coffeepot, that a reasonable man would desire for a modest breakfast. Mr. Triggs rang the bell. Enter a scared-looking maid, whose presence is acknowledged by Grim with three thumps of his tail upon the ground. She bears in her hand a tea-pot which, without uttering a word or glancing to right or left of the spot on which it is to bo deposited, she places carefully in the centre of the table ; and then she wheels sharp round, and dashes towards the door as if she were a fair Sabinc, pursued by an ardent Roman. " Mary ! " says Mr. Triggs, in his deep full voice. " Sir! " cries Mary, with a start, a rush of blood to the face, and a convulsive clutch at the door-handle. "Tell Mrs. Brett I shall not be home to dinner, and most likely not afore late to-night." " Very well, sir," gasps Mary; and makes her escape to the regions where Mrs. Brett the housekeeper, Mary and her work-sister Martha, are " kept in stock," in case of ...« less