[Mary Anerley by R. D. Blackmore]@TWC D-Link bookMary Anerley CHAPTER XII 18/21
My parents, as I call them from their wonderful goodness, kinder than the ones who have turned me on the world (unless themselves went out of it), resolved to have my white coat done up grandly, when I grew too big for it, and to lay it by in lavender; and knowing of a great man in the gold-lace trade, as far away as Scarborough, they sent it by a fishing-smack to him, with people whom they knew thoroughly. That was the last of it ever known here.
The man swore a manifest that he never saw it, and threatened them with libel; and the smack was condemned, and all her hands impressed, because of some trifle she happened to carry; and nobody knows any more of it.
But two of the buttons had fallen off, and good mother had put them by, to give a last finish to the coat herself; and when I grew up, and had to go to sea at night, they were turned into a pair of ear-rings.
There, now, Miss Anerley, I have not been long, and you know all about it." "How very lonesome it must be for you," said Mary, with a gentle gaze, which, coming from such lovely eyes, went straight into his heart, "to have no one belonging to you by right, and to seem to belong to nobody! I am sure I can not tell whatever I should do without any father, or mother, or uncle, or even a cousin to be certain of." "All the ladies seem to think that it is rather hard upon me," Robin answered, with an excellent effort at a sigh; "but I do my very best to get on without them.
And one thing that helps me most of all is when kind ladies, who have good hearts, allow me to talk to them as if I had a sister.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|