A Lady of Quality: Being a Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, as Related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff but Not Presented to the World of Fashion Through the Pages of The Tatler, and Now for the First Time Written DownBurnett, Frances Hodgson
General
A Lady of Quality: Being a Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, as Related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff but Not Presented to the World of Fashion Through the Pages of The Tatler, and Now for the First Time Written Down
Burnett, Frances Hodgson
Nobility -- Fiction
"Heard ye how she found that poor wench of Haylits lying sobbing among
the fern in the Tower woods, and stayed and knelt beside her to hear her
trouble? The poor soul has gone to ruin at fourteen, and her father,
finding her out, beat her and thrust her from his door, and her Grace
coming through the wood at sunset--it being her way to walk about for
mere pleasure as though she had no coach to ride in--the girl says she
came through the golden glow as if she had been one of God's angels--and
she kneeled and took the poor wench in her arms--as strong as a man,
Betty says, but as soft as a young mother--and she said to her things
surely no mortal lady ever said before--that she knew naught of a surety
of what God's true will might be, or if His laws were those that have
been made by man concerning marriage by priests saying common words, but
that she surely knew of a man whose name was Christ, and He had taught
love and helpfulness and pity, and for His sake, He having earned our
trust in Him, whether He was God or man, because He hung and died in
awful torture on the Cross--for His sake all of us must love and help and
pity--'I you, poor Betty,' were her very words, 'and you me.' And then
she went to the girl's father and mother, and so talked to them that she
brought them to weeping, and begging Betty to come home; and also she
went to her sweetheart, Tom Beck, and made so tender a story to him of
the poor pretty wench whose love for him had brought her to such trouble,
that she stirred him up to falling in love again, which is not man's way
at such times, and in a week's time he and Betty went to church together,
her Grace setting them up in a cottage on the estate."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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