Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 29, 2025
Next day all the guests at the Manor had departed with the exception of three Louis Gigue, and the 'Sisters Gemini, namely, Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby. With much gush and gratitude for a 'charming stay a delightful time! Lady Beaulyon and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay took leave of their 'dear Maryllia, who received their farewells and embraces with an irresponsively civil coldness.
She had been represented as a 'Shepherdess, a 'Madonna, a 'Girl with Lilies, a 'Lady with a Greyhound, a 'Nymph Sleeping, and more briefly and to the purpose, as 'Portrait of Lady Wicketts, in every exhibition of pictures that had been held during her youth and prime. Miss Fosby carried prints and photographs of these works of art everywhere about with her.
This time Miss Fosby laughed. "Oh no! When WE leave it, the Manor is to be shut up again for quite a long time probably till next summer." "Miss Bourne has gone with her friend, I suppose?" "No," and Miss Fosby sought carefully among her embroidery silks for some special tint of colour "Little Cicely and Monsieur Gigue, her master, went away together only this morning."
Lady Wicketts did not, in any marked way, respond to Miss Fosby's tenderness, she merely allowed herself to be worshipped, just as in her youth she had allowed scores of young bloods to kiss her hand and murmur soft nothings in her then 'shell-like' ear. The young bloods were gone, but Miss Fosby remained. Better the worship of Miss Fosby than no worship at all.
All the women smoked with the exception of Maryllia, Cicely and old Miss Fosby. The rings of pale blue vapour circled before Maryllia's eyes in a dim cloud, she had seen the same kind of mixed smoking going on before, scores of times, and yet now why was it that she felt vaguely annoyed by a sense of discrepancy and vulgarity She could not tell.
I know heaps and heaps of married women, and they are in anything but an enviable state. I would not change with one of them!" "Would you like to be another Miss Fosby?" he suggested in a mirthful undertone. She smiled. "Well no! But I would rather be Miss Fosby than Lady Wicketts!" Here she rose, giving the signal for general adjournment to the drawing-room.
"With pleasure!" and Lady Wicketts' sunken old eyes gleamed with an anxious light over the furrows of flesh which encircled them, as she promptly deserted Miss Fosby, who had been sitting next to her, for the purpose of livelier entertainment; and in a moment there was a general gathering together in the wide embrasure of the window nook, and an animated discussion as to who should play Bridge and who should not.
"Where has she gone?" asked Roxmouth, affecting as much ease and lightness of manner as he could in putting the question. Miss Fosby smiled a little more. "I really don't know," she replied, with civil mildness "I fancy she has no settled plans at all. She has kindly allowed Lady Wicketts and myself the use of the Manor for three weeks." "Till she returns?" suggested Longford.
Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby were their actual names, and they were happily unconscious of the unfeeling sobriquet bestowed upon them when they were out of hearing. Lady Wicketts had once been a reigning 'beauty, and she lived on the reputation of that glorious past. Miss Fosby aided and abetted her in this harmless self-deception.
There was an awkward pause after this, and though Longford skilfully changed the subject of conversation to generalities, the rest of the interview was fraught with considerable embarrassment. Miss Fosby was not to be 'drawn. She was distinctly 'old-fashioned, needless therefore to add that she was absolutely loyal to her absent friend and hostess.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking