Emmanuel Burden, merchant, of Thames St., in the city of London, exporter of hardware : $b A record of his lineage, speculations, last days and deathBelloc, Hilaire
General
Emmanuel Burden, merchant, of Thames St., in the city of London, exporter of hardware : $b A record of his lineage, speculations, last days and death
Belloc, Hilaire
Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Merchants -- Fiction; Satire
Certain developments in the structure of our English society made it
increasingly difficult to continue the custom of taking high tea at
half-past six. This meal had already been supplanted by a set dinner
at the more fashionable hour of seven, when Mrs Burden introduced
the change whereby her two daughters, aged respectively fourteen and
twelve years, were withdrawn from Mrs Cathcart’s seminary at Dulwich,
and put under the care of a private governess, a Miss M’Kee, of whom
Mrs Burden had heard from a friend who was intimate with the niece of
Lady Bagshawe.
Thanks to the able guidance of this lady, Ermyntrude and Gwynnys very
rapidly acquired an acquaintance with all that best suited the part
they would be called upon to play in their social rank. A thorough
knowledge of German, some elements of French, and a good grounding in
psychology and practical nursing, left them at the ages of eighteen
and twenty all that charming, simple English girls should be.
They came out together (for Ermyntrude looked, if anything, younger
than her sister) at the Jubilee Ball given in the Town Hall of
Sydenham in 1897.
Mr Burden had never disguised his intention of portioning his
daughters. The elder was soon married to a young doctor of
considerable ability, who emigrated with his wife to Winnipeg, in
which distant capital he still pursues a prosperous career. Long
a president of the Orange Lodge[2] in that city, he was recently
returned to the Dominion Parliament on the Manitoba Catholic schools
question; his career will doubtless be familiar to many who may read
these lines.
[Illustration: SPIRITUAL ANXIETY OF MR LEGROS AN IMPRESSION FROM THE
PENCIL OF A FRIEND AND PASTOR, WHOSE HOUSE HE WOULD FREQUENT FOR THE
SOLUTION OF DOCTRINAL DOUBTS]
Gwynnys, on the contrary, during a visit to her sister in Canada,
married, somewhat abruptly, Karl P. Legros, a dark young officer in
the local army. The captain (for such was his rank) was unfortunate
in his business of butter-brokering. He became involved, through
no fault of his own, in the collapse and subsequent trial of the
Milwaukee Butter-King. Driven by the mysterious instinct resident
in all scions of our race beyond the seas, Karl P. Legros sought
England in the hour of his need; nor did England fail him. After
a short period of hesitation, and, it must be confessed, of some
spiritual anxiety, he took Holy Orders, and was soon installed, by
the efforts of his father-in-law, as rector of the small living of
Benthanger, in Kent. He has continued, for many years, to fulfil the
duties of his sacred calling in this place, and has been supported
unwaveringly throughout a life of arduous and unremitting labour by
his noble and devoted wife; a true Christian matron, to whom her
father made, till his death, a small yearly allowance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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