Penelope's English Experiences: Being Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope HamiltonWiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
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Penelope's English Experiences: Being Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
Americans -- England -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
“We might have something quite out of the common, like 'Providence
Cottage,' down the bank. I don't know why Mrs. Jones calls it Providence
Cottage, unless she thinks it's a providence that she has one at all;
or because, as it's just on the edge of the hill, she thinks it's a
providence that it hasn't blown off. How would you like 'Peace' or
'Rest' Cottage?”
“Begging your pardon, miss, it's neither peace nor rest I gets in it
these days, with a twenty-five pound debt 'anging over me, and three
children to feed and clothe.”
“I fear we are not very clever, Mrs. Bobby, or we should hit upon the
right thing with less trouble. I know what I will do: I will go down in
the road and look at the place for a long time from the outside, and try
to think what it suggests to me.”
“Thank you, miss; and I'm sure I'm grateful for all the trouble you are
taking with my small affairs.”
Down I went, and leaned over the wicket-gate, gazing at the unnamed
cottage. The brick pathway was scrubbed as clean as a penny, and the
stone step and the floor of the little kitchen as well. The garden was
a maze of fragrant bloom, with never a weed in sight. The fowl cackled
cheerily still, adding insult to injury, the pet sheep munched grass
contentedly, and the canaries sang in their cages under the vines.
Mrs. Bobby settled herself on the porch with a pan of peas in her neat
gingham lap, and all at once I cried:--
“'Comfort Cottage'! It is the very essence of comfort, Mrs. Bobby, even
if there is not absolute peace or rest. Let me paint the signboard for
you this very day.”
Mrs. Bobby was most complacent over the name. She had the greatest
confidence in my judgment, and the characterisation pleased her
housewifely pride, so much so that she flushed with pleasure as she said
that if she 'ad 'er 'ealth she thought she could keep the place looking
so that the passers-by would easily h'understand the name.
Chapter XXIII. Tea served here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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