Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 24, 2025
Then she became painfully conscious that even the maid-servant knew more of the social ways of the place than did she. When she reached the top of Mrs Stumfold's stairs, her heart was in her mouth, for she perceived immediately that she had kept people waiting. After all, she had trusted to false intelligence in that matter of the hour.
"Yes; and when I come to warn you, you insult me. He is Mr Stumfold's curate, and in many respects he is well fitted for his office." "But has he two or three wives already, Mrs Stumfold?" "I never said that he had." "I thought you hinted it." "I never hinted it, Miss Mackenzie.
"But did you ever say you would marry her?" "What! Miss Floss, never! I'll tell you the whole story, Miss Mackenzie; and if you want to ask any one else, you can ask Mrs Perch." Mrs Perch was the coachbuilder's wife. "You've seen Miss Floss at Mrs Stumfold's, and must know yourself whether I ever noticed her any more than to be decently civil." "Is she the lady that's so thin and tall?" "Yes."
Miss Mackenzie, when she was first interrogated as to her intentions, declared her purpose of wearing a certain black silk dress which had seen every party at Mrs Stumfold's during Margaret's Littlebath season. To this her cousin demurred, and from demurring proceeded to the enunciation of a positive order. The black silk dress in question should not be worn.
With all the Stumfoldians she was on terms of mitigated friendship, and always went to Mrs Stumfold's fortnightly tea-drinkings. But with no lady there, always excepting Miss Baker, did she find that she grew into familiarity. With Mrs Stumfold no one was familiar.
She had fallen into the habit of going to Mrs Stumfold's tea-parties every fortnight, and was now regarded as a regular Stumfoldian by all those who interested themselves in such matters. She had begun a system of district visiting and Bible reading with Miss Baker, which had at first been very agreeable to her.
And there was in Mrs Stumfold's voice as she spoke an expression of offended majesty, and in her countenance a look of awful authority, sufficient no doubt to bring most Stumfoldian ladies to their bearings. "You said nothing about being engaged to him." "Oh, Miss Mackenzie!" "You said nothing about being engaged to him, but if you had I should have made the same answer.
Ah! me; I wish I could make myself comfortable." "I should have thought, seeing you so much in Mrs Stumfold's house " "I have the greatest veneration for that woman, Miss Mackenzie! I have sometimes thought that of all the human beings I have ever met, she is the most perfect; she is human, and therefore a sinner, but her sins never meet my eyes."
"I saw that you observed, Miss Mackenzie," he said, "that I kept aloof from you on the two last evenings on which I met you at Mrs Stumfold's." "That's a long time ago, Mr Maguire," she answered. "It's nearly a month since I went to Mrs Stumfold's house." "I know that you were not there on the last Thursday. I noticed it. I could not fail to notice it.
She had heard no ring at the bell, and having settled herself with a novel in the arm-chair, had almost ceased for the moment to think of Mr Maguire or of Mrs Stumfold. There was something so sudden in the request now made to her, that it took away her breath. "Mr Maguire, Miss, the clergyman from Mr Stumfold's church," said the girl again.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking