The Pit Town Coronet: A Family Mystery, Volume 2 (of 3)Wills, C. J. (Charles James)
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The Pit Town Coronet: A Family Mystery, Volume 2 (of 3)
Wills, C. J. (Charles James)
England -- Juvenile fiction; Families -- Juvenile fiction
"It's no good, my dear; you must clutch and nestle. I wouldn't give
that," and here he snapped his fingers, "for a woman who can't clutch
and nestle; try it with me."
Breitmann took up the position of the leading man. Mrs. Charmington gave
one tearful glance at her husband, then she rushed into Breitmann's arms
and did her best to clutch and to nestle. But he was not even then
satisfied.
"Go home, my dear," he said, "and practise it with your husband."
What a situation for one who has been a queen of society. When Mrs.
Charmington, almost heart-broken, reached her lodgings she informed her
husband that it was more than she could bear.
"The idea of the wretch actually teaching me my business before my whole
company, and then ordering me to go home and learn to 'clutch and
nestle.'"
"Dev'lish sensible idea I think, Julia," said Charmington, who was in
love with his wife before all things; "you can't do better than begin at
once," and the little man drew himself up to his full height of five
foot six and extended his arms like a mechanical doll.
"Don't remind me of my humiliation, Jack; it's too much, too much to
bear," and the beauty flung herself into an easy chair and burst into
floods of tears.
But Julia Charmington, wise woman that she was, did as she was bid; she
clutched and she nestled all that afternoon, and she had her reward. For
six whole months she delighted all the great provincial towns and
watering-places of the United Kingdom with "Ethel's Sacrifice," and she
reaped a golden harvest. When she came to town for the season she
scored a decided success, and all the leading Dailies joined in the
chorus of adulation. The fair Julia got a good round sum from the
photographers for the right to represent her in her four elaborate
costumes; the particular triumph of the sun-artist being the
representation of her nestling and clutching scene. Even the dramatic
critic of the great morning journal went into ecstasies over this.
"Mrs. Charmington," he said, "has made real progress. It has been the
fashion to go to see this lady from curiosity, but last night she scored
a genuine success in 'Ethel's Sacrifice,' a thrilling melodrama by
Messrs. Breitmann and Robinson, which was seen in London for the first
time. The house was crowded with the well-known faces so familiar to us
at all important _premières_. In her great scene in the third act, Mrs.
Charmington took every one by surprise. Thoroughly spontaneous and
unaffected, quite free from staginess and straining after effect, the
audience thoroughly appreciated the genuine burst of feeling of the
young wife," and so on, and so on, for a column and a half.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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