FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32  
33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>   >|  
heir time in cultivating Juliana and Mrs. Moon. The thing had been tried by one or two of the younger teachers who went in for all-round self-development and were getting up the minor virtues. But they had met with no encouragement and they had ceased to come. Then nobody came; not even the doctor or the clergyman. The two ladies were of one mind on that point; it was convenient for them to ignore their trifling ailments, spiritual or bodily. And as soon as they saw that the world renounced them they adopted a lofty tone and said to each other that they had renounced the world. For they were proud, Mrs. Moon especially so. Tollington Moon had married slightly, ever so slightly beneath him, the Moons again marking a faint descent from the standing of the Quinceys. But the old lady had completely identified herself, not only with the Moons, but with the higher branch, which she always spoke of as "_my_ family." In fact she had worn her connection with the Quinceys as a feather in her cap so long that the feather had grown, as it were, into an entire bird of paradise. And once a bird of paradise, always a bird of paradise, though it had turned on the world a somewhat dilapidated tail. So the two lived on together; so they had always lived. Mrs. Moon was an old woman before she was five-and-fifty; and before she was five-and-twenty Juliana's youth had withered away in the sour and sordid atmosphere born of perishing gentility and acrid personal remark. And their household gods looked down on them, miniatures and silhouettes of Moons and Quinceys, calm and somewhat contemptuous presences. From the post of honour above the mantelshelf, Tollington, attired as an Early Victorian dandy, splendid in velvet waistcoat, scarf and chain-pin, leaned on a broken column symbolical of his fortunes, and smiled genially on the ruin he had made. That was how Miss Quincey came to St. Sidwell's. And now she was five-and-forty; she had always been five-and-forty; that is to say, she had never been young, for to be young you must be happy. And this was so far an advantage, that when middle-age came on her she felt no difference. CHAPTER III Inaugural Addresses It was evening, early in the winter term, and Miss Cursiter was giving her usual inaugural address to the staff. Their number had increased so considerably that the little class-room was packed to overflowing. Miss Cursiter stood in the free space at the end, facing six
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32  
33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

paradise

 
Quinceys
 
feather
 

Tollington

 
renounced
 
Juliana
 
slightly
 

Cursiter

 

gentility

 

column


fortunes
 

symbolical

 

smiled

 

broken

 
genially
 
leaned
 

silhouettes

 

contemptuous

 

presences

 
miniatures

personal
 

household

 

looked

 

splendid

 
velvet
 

Victorian

 

remark

 
honour
 

mantelshelf

 
attired

waistcoat
 

giving

 

inaugural

 

address

 

winter

 
Inaugural
 

Addresses

 

evening

 

overflowing

 
packed

number

 

increased

 

considerably

 

Sidwell

 
Quincey
 

difference

 

CHAPTER

 
facing
 

middle

 

perishing