British -- Oceania -- Fiction; Missionaries -- Fiction
THE MAN
Ten years later Miss Jean Arnot was visiting her aunts in Greenock
again. Not but what she had been there many times in between, but this
is the only occasion of which we need take note.
There had been many changes in these ten years.
For one thing, Jean's father was dead, and she was a very wealthy young
woman. In many respects she was still very like the little Jean of
earlier times. Her face was still the sweet, long oval of her
childhood, though the features were more pronounced and matured. But
the chief impression it left upon you was still that of eager
questioning, a great longing to know, tempered somewhat by years and
freedom from all material care. "Want-to-know" was getting on in
years--twenty-three, a great age--but there were still mysteries of
life which she had not solved, wherein she found matter for surprise at
times.
But life ran very smoothly and pleasantly with her. She went out a
little, and entertained a little in return, travelled much, and was not
wanting in good deeds and charity. Her income was about ten times as
large as was really good for her, and if she gave munificently she
never missed what she gave, so that the recipients were the sole
beneficiaries of her giving.
She had hosts of friends, phalanxes of admirers; could have had hosts
of aspirants to a still closer relationship, but so far would have none
of them. She was enjoying herself exceedingly, and fulfilling in their
entirety the aspirations of her childhood. She was a lady, she was
rich, and she was doing as she liked--and she had not touched a needle
since she came into her kingdom.
That was the natural rebound, for Aunt Jannet Harvey, a famous
needlewoman and housewife herself, had rigorously insisted--so long as
she was in power--on her niece learning the minor as well as the major
accomplishments of a gentlewoman, such as had obtained during her own
long apprenticeship to that high estate. And that is how it came to
pass that Miss Jean Arnot, wealthy heiress and society lady, really
knew a very great deal more about some things than you would have
imagined from the casual sight of her at dance or opera.
The moment she was free, and a woman of herself, she relegated the
"hijjus" things to what she considered their proper place in the
economy of her life, and, later, dug them up out of their dusty corners
gratefully, and Aunt Jannet was justified.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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