Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral TalesEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 01: Moral Tales
Edgeworth, Maria
Fiction
she found that even the want of double refined sugar, of green tea, and
Mocha coffee, was sensibly felt. Hour after hour, and day after day,
passed with Angelina, in anxious expectation of her Araminta's return
home. Her time hung heavy upon her hands, for she had no companion with
whom she could converse; and one odd volume of Rousseau's Eloise, and a
few well-thumbed German plays, were the only books which she could find
in the house. There was, according to Betty Williams's report, "a vast
sight of books in a press, along with some table-cloths," but Miss
Hodges had the key of this press in her pocket. Deprived of the
pleasures both of reading and conversation, Angelina endeavoured to
amuse herself by contemplating the beauties of nature. There were some
wild, solitary walks in the neighbourhood of Angelina Bower; but though
our heroine was delighted with these, she wanted, in her rambles,
some kindred soul, to whom she might exclaim--"How charming is
solitude{1}!"--The day after her arrival in Wales, she wrote a long
letter to Araminta, which Betty Williams undertook to send by a careful
lad, a particular friend of her own, who would deliver it, without fail,
into Miss Hodges's own hands, and who would engage to bring an answer
by three o'clock the next day. The careful lad did not return till four
days afterward, and he then could give no account of his mission, except
that he had left the letter at Bristol, with a particular friend of his
own, who would deliver it, without fail, into Miss Hodges's own hands,
if he could meet with her. The post seems to be the last expedient which
a heroine ever thinks of for the conveyance of her letters; so that,
if we were to judge from the annals of romance, we should infallibly
conclude there was no such thing as a post-office in England. On the
sixth day of her abode at this comfortless cottage, the possibility of
sending a letter to her friend by the post occurred to Angelina, and she
actually discovered that there was a post-office at Cardiffe. Before she
could receive an answer to this epistle, a circumstance happened, which
made her determine to abandon her present retreat. One evening she
rambled out to a considerable distance from the cottage, and it was long
after sunset ere she recollected that it would be necessary to return
homewards before it grew dark. She mistook her way at last, and
following a sheep-path, down the steep side of a mountain, she came to
a point, at which she, apparently, could neither advance nor recede. A
stout Welsh farmer who was counting his sheep in a field, at the top of
the mountain, happened to look down its steep side in search of one of
his flock that was missing: the farmer saw something white at a distance
below him, but there was a mist--it was dusk in the evening--and whether
it were a woman, or a sheep, he could not he certain. In the hope that
Angelina was his lost sheep, he went to her assistance, and though, upon
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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