Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 30, 2025
She was amused but gratified, when Miss Buckston told her what were Franklin's good qualities, and said that though he had many foolish democratic notions, he was more worth while talking to than any man she had met for a long time.
If she was rude it was never unconsciously so. After her first talk with Miss Buckston, in which the latter, as was her wont, told her a number of unpleasant facts about America and the Americans, Mrs. Pepperell said to her niece, 'What an intolerable woman! 'She doesn't mean it, said Althea feebly. 'Perhaps not, said Aunt Julia; 'but I intend that she shall see what I mean.
Helen said no more, and the subject was still unapproached. 'And how do you like Mr. Kane? Althea now felt herself forced to add. She had not intended to use that casual tone, nearly the same tone that she had used for Miss Buckston.
Aunt Julia, conscious of her own honourable career, with its achievements in enlightened philanthropy and its background of careful study, heard this with inexpressible ire; but when she was dragged to the execrable taste of a retaliation, and pointed to the British countryside matron, as they saw her at Merriston a creature, said Aunt Julia, hardly credible in her complacency and narrowness, Miss Buckston rejoined with an unruffled smile: 'Ah, we'll wake them up.
The absurd outcome of the situation was that Althea and Aunt Julia came to look for succour to the girls. The girls were able astonishingly so, to cope with Miss Buckston.
The garden, she said, was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack creature, Gerald Digby, I've heard. Althea coldly explained that Mr. Digby was too poor to live at Merriston and to keep it up. She did not herself in the least mind the shabbiness. 'Oh, I don't mind it, said Miss Buckston.
She had fires lighted, much to Miss Buckston's amusement, and sat a good deal by the blaze in the drawing-room, controlling her displeasure when Miss Buckston, dressed in muddy tweed and with a tweed cap pulled down over her brows, came striding in from a ten-mile tramp and said, pulling open all the windows, 'You are frightfully frusty in here.
'How do you like Miss Buckston now that you see her at closer quarters? Althea asked, hoping to approach the subject that preoccupied her by a circuitous method. Helen smiled. 'One hardly likes her better at closer quarters, does one? She is like a gun going off every few moments. Althea smiled too; she no longer felt many qualms of loyalty on Miss Buckston's behalf.
She was bound, until the middle of August, in a rush of engagements, and meanwhile Althea, rather ruefully, was forced to fall back on Miss Buckston for companionship.
She had met Miss Buckston, but had only a vague and, evidently, not a pleasant impression of her. Lady Blair she had never heard of, nor the inmates of Grimshaw Rectory. The Collings were also blanks, except that Mrs. Colling had an uncle, an old Lord Taunton; and when Althea put forward this identifying fact, Helen said that she knew him and liked him very much.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking