The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ancestors, by Gertrude Atherton

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Title: Ancestors
A Novel

Author: Gertrude Atherton

Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31858]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Ancestors

A Novel

By Gertrude Atherton

Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
New York and London

_All rights reserved._

Published September, 1907.

TO
Emma Beatrice Brunner

PART I

1904

I

Miss Thangue, who had never seen her friend's hand tremble among the
teacups before, felt an edge on her mental appetite, stimulating after
two monotonous years abroad. It was several minutes, however, before she
made any effort to relieve her curiosity, for of all her patron-friends
Victoria Gwynne required the most delicate touch. Flora had learned to
be audacious without taking a liberty, which, indeed, was one secret of
her success; but although she prided herself upon her reading of this
enigma, whom even the ancestral dames of Capheaton looked down upon
inspectively, she was never quite sure of her ground. She particularly
wished to avoid mistakes upon the renewal of an intimacy kept alive by a
fitful correspondence during her sojourn on the Continent. Quite apart
from self-interest, she liked no one as well, and her curiosity was
tempered by a warm sympathy and a genuine interest. It was this capacity
for friendship, and her unlimited good-nature, that had saved her,
penniless as she was, from the ignominious footing of the social
parasite. The daughter of a clergyman in a Yorkshire village, and the
playmate in childhood of the little girls of the castle near by, she had
realized early in life that although pretty and well-bred, she was not
yet sufficiently dowered by either nature or fortune to hope for a
brilliant marriage; and she detested poverty. Upon her father's death
she must earn her bread, and, reasoning that self-support