United States or Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I'm so glad I happened to see it in Seraphine's hands yesterday, just as she was going to send it to Lady Fonvielle, who gives herself such intolerable airs on the strength of a pretty face, and always wants to get the primeures in bonnets and things. 'Another new bonnet! replied Lesbia. 'What an infinity of things I seem to be having from Seraphine.
"Yet by trick and subterfuge you have intruded. Methinks I scarce should let you leave this place alive, to boast what you have done." The Prioress paused. The figure stood, with folded arms, immovable, leaning against the wall. There was a quality in this motionless silence such as the Prioress had not connected with her idea of Mary Seraphine's "Cousin Wilfred." This was not a man to threaten.
That was the first French word I have heard them say: strange and sulphureous first-fruits of Seraphine's teaching! We were going round the garden in a procession, I with a big pair of scissors, and the Three with baskets, into one of which I put fresh flowers, and into the others flowers that were beginning to seed, dead flowers, and seed-pods.
Enlightened thus by the lips of the worldly-wise, Lesbia thought ruefully of the bills which her grandmother would have to pay for her at the end of the season, bills of the amount whereof she could not even make an approximate guess. Seraphine's charges had never been discussed in her hearing but Lady Kirkbank had admitted that the creature was dear.
It was Seraphine's bill such a bill, page after page on creamy Bath post, written in an elegant Italian hand by one of Seraphine's young women. Lesbia looked at it aghast with horror.
And horrified at the idea of her vulgarised charms the meek matron would consent to encase herself in one of Seraphine's severest corsets, called in bitterest mockery
It was I who told you so, even before I knew you were the intruder, while yet addressing you as Sister Seraphine's 'Cousin Wilfred. I said that you had been thwarted in your purpose by the faithfulness of the old lay-sister, Mary Antony, who never fails to count the White Ladies, as they go, and as they return, and who had reported to me that one more had returned than went.
Should a husband appear in the picture, he is soon relegated to the background, receiving only occasional glances over the shoulder. If children dance into the field of vision, they are petulantly driven elsewhere. Tell me? Did Sister Seraphine's desire for life include any expression of the desire to give life?" Involuntarily the Prioress glanced at the sweet Babe upon the Virgin's knees.
Lesbia entered Seraphine's Louis-seize drawing-room with a faint expectation of unpleasantness; but after a little whispering between Lady Kirkbank and the dressmaker, the latter came to Lesbia smiling graciously, and seemingly full of eagerness for new orders. 'Miladi says you want something of the most original tant soit peu risqué for 'Enley, she said.
Reine, too, as she grew into a woman, amid the hours of idleness when she was left alone by her father who, perforce, had to spend his days at the Beauchene works developed an ardent temperament and a thirst for every frivolous pleasure. And by degrees the once simply petted child became a participator in Seraphine's own reckless and dissolute life.
Word Of The Day