The Last of the Mortimers: A Story in Two VoicesOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
General
The Last of the Mortimers: A Story in Two Voices
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Fiction
“But it might sell for a good price,” said Harry, “and I might get you a
pretty cottage, where you pleased, with the money. I am going to write
to old Pendleton to tell him who you are and all about it. You have had
your own way with your first bit of fortune; but I should not at all
wonder, Milly darling,” he said, laughing, “if you were to offer it,
rent free, to your Aunt Connor, that she might find it a very eligible
situation. After such a description, Mrs. Connor is not the woman to
despise the red-brick house.”
“She might have it altogether, and welcome, for me,” said I. “Oh, Harry,
I can’t help thinking it’s an ill omened place. I could never be happy
there.”
“Who ever heard of an ill omen now-a-days?” said Harry, “it’s a pagan
fancy, Milly. For my part the idea rather captivates me. I should like
to live in the house my good father was born in. My bridegroom uncle has
it now. Don’t you think I had better write and tell him my little wife
is an heiress? However, perhaps the best thing will be to try and sell
the house.”
“Oh, much the best thing!” I said. That would be getting rid of it, at
all events; and as Harry would not leave off talking of it, I persuaded
him with all my might to get done with it so. We were both quite
confident that we had only to say who we were and get it without any
trouble. That, of course, was all very natural in me that knew nothing
about things, but Harry might have known better. He was quite pleased
and interested about it. I think he never was quite satisfied not to
know who I belonged to; but now that he had hunted up my grandfather, he
was quite comforted. And how he did talk of the pretty cottage he was to
buy me! Sometimes it was to be in England, in his own county; which he
naturally liked best of all places; sometimes near Edinburgh, where we
were, because I was fond of it. Sometimes we took walks and looked at
all the pretty little houses we could see. He had planned it out in his
own mind, all the rooms it was to have, and used to study the
upholsterer’s windows, and take me ever so far out of my way to see some
pretty table or chair that had taken his fancy. He said if he could only
see me settled, and know exactly what I was looking at, and all the
things round me, it would be such a comfort when he went away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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