The Long VacationYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
History
The Long Vacation
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Upper class -- England -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction; Vacations -- Fiction
Phyllis and Mysie came up, asking Maura to tell them the name of a
mountain peak with a white cap. The party came up to dinner, which was
as genial and easy as the host and Lord Rotherwood could make it, and as
stiff and grand as the hostess could accomplish, aided by the deftness
and grace of her Italian servants. In the evening Theodore came up to
assist in the singing of glees, and Clement’s voice was a delightful and
welcome sound in his sister’s ears. Ivinghoe stood among the circle at
the piano, and enjoyed. He and his sister were not particularly musical,
but enough to enjoy those remarkable Underwood voices. After that Maura
never promoted musical evenings.
An odd little Sunday-school for the children of the English workmen had
been instituted at Rocca Marina, where Maura had always assisted the
chaplain’s wife, and Anna and Francie shared the work. Mysie heard of it
with enthusiasm, for, as Ivinghoe told her, she was pining for a breath
of the atmosphere, but she came down to enjoy the delights thereof
alone, taking Maura’s small class. Maura was supposed to be doing the
polite to Lady Phyllis, but in point of fact Phyllis was lying down
in the balcony of her mother’s dressing-room, and Maura was gracefully
fanning herself under a great cork tree, while Lord Ivinghoe was lying
on the grass.
Francie looked languid, and said it was getting dreadfully hot, but
Mrs. Grinstead took no notice, trusting that the cessation of attentions
would hinder any feeling from going deeper, so that--as she could not
help saying to herself--she might not have brought the poor child out of
the frying-pan into the fire--not an elegant proverb, but expressing her
feeling!
More especially did it do so, when she found that Lord Rotherwood was
so much delighted with the beauty and variety of the marbles of Rocca
Marina as to order a font to be made of them for the church that was
being restored at Clarebridge, and he, and still more his son, found
constant diversion in running over by train from San Remo to superintend
the design, and to select the different colours and patterns of the
stones as they were quarried out and bits polished so as to show their
beauty. Their ladies often accompanied them, and these expeditions
generally involved luncheon at the castle, and often tea at the
parsonage, but it might be gradually observed, as time went on, that
there was a shade of annoyance on the part of the great house at the
preference sometimes unconsciously shown for the society of the smaller
one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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