Read Books Online, for Free |
A Lady of Quality | Frances Hodgson Burnett | |
The twenty-fourth day of November 1690 |
Page 2 of 5 |
He spent but little time in her society, for she was a poor, gentle creature of no spirit, who found little happiness in her lot, since her lord treated her with scant civility, and her children one after another sickened and died in their infancy until but two were left. He scarce remembered her existence when he did not see her face, and he was certainly not thinking of her this morning, having other things in view, and yet it so fell out that, while a groom was shortening a stirrup and being sworn at for his awkwardness, he by accident cast his eye upward to a chamber window peering out of the thick ivy on the stone. Doing so he saw an old woman draw back the curtain and look down upon him as if searching for him with a purpose. He uttered an exclamation of anger. "Damnation! Mother Posset again," he said. "What does she there, old frump?" The curtain fell and the woman disappeared, but in a few minutes more an unheard-of thing happened--among the servants in the hall, the same old woman appeared making her way with a hurried fretfulness, and she descended haltingly the stone steps and came to his side where he sat on his black horse. "The Devil!" he exclaimed--"what are you here for? 'Tis not time for another wench upstairs, surely?" "'Tis not time," answered the old nurse acidly, taking her tone from his own. "But there is one, but an hour old, and my lady--" "Be damned to her!" quoth Sir Jeoffry savagely. "A ninth one--and 'tis nine too many. 'Tis more than man can bear. She does it but to spite me." |
Who's On Your Reading List? Read Classic Books Online for Free at Page by Page Books.TM |
A Lady of Quality Frances Hodgson Burnett |
Home | More Books | About Us | Copyright 2004