United States or Democratic Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Adrian says his mother moves about a good deal and he's lost her address. Probably, if he truth were known, he's had a row at home. So many boys nowadays seem to think that quarrelling with one's family is a recognized occupation." Lucas's next communication from the travellers took the form of a telegram from Mrs. Mebberley herself.
Lucas checked himself on the threshold of what was perhaps a social indiscretion. "Beth? Where is it? It sounds like Asia, Minor. Is she mixed up with Consular people?" "Oh, no. Her work lies among the poor." This was a side-slip into truth. The mother of Adrian was employed in a laundry. "I see," said Mrs. Mebberley, "mission work of some sort. And meanwhile the boy has no one to look after him.
What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English. To-morrow at five you can bring your young friend to call on me." And Lucas, realizing that Susan Mebberley was a woman as well as an aunt, saw that she would have to be allowed to have her own way.
Susan Mebberley had expressed the intention of showing Adrian a bit of the world; the particular bit of the world represented by Dohledorf began to be shown a good deal of Adrian. Lucas got occasional glimpses of the Alpine sojourn, not from his aunt or Adrian, but from the industrious pen of Clovis, who was also moving as a satellite in the Mebberley constellation.
Mebberley, at a fashionable tea shop, where the lamp of family life is still kept burning and you meet relatives who might otherwise have slipped your memory. "Who was that good-looking boy who was dining with you last night?" she asked. "He looked much too nice to be thrown away upon you." Susan Mebberley was a charming woman, but she was also an aunt. "His mother lives at Beth "
Adrian was duly carried abroad under the Mebberley wing; but as a reluctant concession to sanity Homburg and other inconveniently fashionable resorts were given a wide berth, and the Mebberley establishment planted itself down in the best hotel at Dohledorf, an Alpine townlet somewhere at the back of the Engadine.
Word Of The Day