A Widow's Tale, and Other StoriesOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
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A Widow's Tale, and Other Stories
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Fiction; Short stories
However, the matter did not end there, though Charles Wargrave hoped it
would. He went away from the Square feeling quite light, and released
from a burden that had been weighing on him--for, to be sure, he had no
desire to attach himself to a governess, however beautiful and charming
she might be--and it was a real relief to find that he could shake off
the visionary yoke, and that she was not either charming or beautiful.
He left the house in the Square quite at his ease, saying to himself
that it would be a joke indeed, after having passed harmless through all
the snares which every man about town believes to be laid for him,
should he fall a victim at last to the delusive angelic presence of
old-fashioned poetry--
"When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou."
That was all very well, and women were good sick-nurses in general, and
Mademoiselle in particular might be very kind and ready, he made no
doubt. It might be reasonable enough to fall subject to an angelic nurse
who had ministered to yourself; but when it was only your cousin-in-law
who was the object of the ministrations! He laughed, and said to himself
that it was a good joke, as he went away, and shook off the
recollection, which was a sort of hallucination, a deceptive effect of
the lights, and the white dress, and the extreme consolation of having a
woman in a faint taken off his hands. He had no doubt Mademoiselle was
quite a superior article of her kind, a nice woman, and all that. He was
glad he had seen her in her everyday garb, and convinced himself what a
nice, commonplace, ordinary governess she was. He went out feeling quite
emancipated and much pleased to have altogether regained his
independence. Good heavens! what a business it would have been had he,
acquainted with the finest women in London, fallen a victim to a
governess! It was too ludicrous to be considered for a moment--and yet
it was certainly an escape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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