Aristocracy (Social class) -- Fiction; Europeans -- United States -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
He was twenty-five. There were bags under his eyes. More than this need
not be said in describing him, unless one is interested in the tiny
black moustache that looked as though it might have been pasted, with
great precision, in the centre of his long upper lip,--directly beneath
the spreading nostrils of a broad and far from aristocratic nose. His
lips were thick and coarse, his chin a trifle undershot. Physically, he
was a well set-up fellow, tall and powerful.
For reasons best known to himself, and approved by his parents, he
affected a distinctly English manner of speech. In that particular, he
frequently out-Englished the English themselves.
As for Miss Emsdale, she was a long time going to sleep. The encounter
with the scion of the house had left her in a disturbed frame of mind.
She laid awake for hours wondering what the morrow would produce for
her. Dismissal, no doubt, and with it a stinging rebuke for what Mrs.
Smith-Parvis would consider herself justified in characterizing as
unpardonable misconduct in one employed to teach innocent and
impressionable young girls. Mingled with these dire thoughts were
occasional thrills of delight. They were, however, of short duration and
had to do with a pair of strong arms and a gentle, laughing voice.
In addition to these shifting fears and thrills, there were even more
disquieting sensations growing out of the unwelcome attentions of
Smith-Parvis, Junior. They were, so to speak, getting on her nerves. And
now he had not only expressed himself in words, but had actually
threatened her. There could be no mistake about that.
Her heart was heavy. She did not want to lose her position. The monthly
checks she received from Mrs. Smith-Parvis meant a great deal to her. At
least half of her pay went to England, and sometimes more than half. A
friendly solicitor in London obtained the money on these drafts and
forwarded it, without fee, to the sick young brother who would never
walk again, the adored young brother who had fallen prey to the most
cruel of all enemies: infantile paralysis.
Jane Thorne was the only daughter of the Earl of Wexham, who shot
himself in London when the girl was but twelve years old. He left a
penniless widow and two children. Wexham Manor, with all its fields and
forests, had been sacrificed beforehand by the reckless, ill-advised
nobleman. The police found a half-crown in his pocket when they took
charge of the body. It was the last of a once imposing fortune. The
widow and children subsisted on the charity of a niggardly relative.
With the death of the former, after ten unhappy years as a dependent,
Jane resolutely refused to accept help from the obnoxious relative. She
set out to earn a living for herself and the crippled boy. We find her,
after two years of struggle and privation, installed as Miss Emsdale in
the Smith-Parvis mansion, earning one hundred dollars a month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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